Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 213, 77-102 (2012)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2012-01665-4

Review

Unravelling low lying phonons and vibrations of carbon nanostructures: The contribution of inelastic and quasi-elastic neutron scattering

¹ Institut Laue Langevin, 38042 Grenoble Cedex 9, France
² Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, UMR CNRS 8502, Université Paris-Sud, 91405 Orsay, France
³ Laboratoire Charles Coulomb, UMR 5221, Université Montpellier 2, 34095 Montpellier, France
⁴ Laboratoire d’Électrodynamique des Matériaux Avancés, UMR CNRS-CEA 6157, Université François Rabelais, 37200 Tours, France
⁵ L. F. Vereshchagin Institute for High Pressure Physics of the RAS, Troitsk, Moscow region, 142190, Russia

^a e-mail: rols@ill.eu
^b Present address: Institut de Chimie Séparative de Marcoule, UMR 5257, 30207 Bagnols-sur-Ceze, France.

Received: 27 June 2012
Revised: 27 September 2012
Published online: 3 December 2012

Abstract

We illustrate the contribution of inelastic neutron scattering to the understanding of the vibrations and lattice excitations of fullerenes and carbon nanotubes, through some significant experimental results. Particular emphasis is placed on the study of intra and inter-molecular modes of fullerene C₆₀, as well as on the order/disorder transition characteristic of these molecules. In addition, a significant part of this article is dedicated to various intercalation compounds of fullerenes and carbon nanotubes, such as the co-crystal “fullerene-cubane” consisting of an arrangement of molecules of spherical and cubic shapes, or the compound called “peapods”, in which fullerene C₆₀ are inserted inside carbon nanotubes.