Growth of fullerene nanoparticles prepared by the gas-evaporation technique

C60 and C70 fullerene nanoparticles prepared by evaporating their powders in inert gas were investigated by electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. Crystal structures of the particles were face centred cubic (fcc) which is a stable phase at high temperature, with lattice parameters of a=1.42 nm for C60 and a=1.499 nm for C70. Nanoparticles with definite crystal habits were sometimes observed among those with irregular ones. For the C70 nanoparticles, the higher the source temperature was, the better-defined the crystal habits were.