Gold stabilized Carbon Chains Crystals in Large Scale Quantities

The search for crystals of sp1 bonded carbon chains or carbynes has been a goal of many research groups. In this paper we report a new method based on chemical synthesis that can produce a large amount of polycrystalline carbon chains. We use a solution of 1-dodecanethiol and gold salts that are subjected to microwave radiation. The resulting material is a white powder. We used TEM, X Ray Diffraction, and Raman spectroscopy to characterize the material. We found a very prominent phase a hexagonal lattice with parameters a=5.45 Å and c=35.4 Å and P6 space group. We found that the carbon chains are stabilized by gold sulphide nanoparticles which attach to the chains. Therefore, our material is a pseudo carbyne and not a pure carbon allotrope since it contains Au and Sulphur. Nevertheless, this work opens the door for research on the properties of sp bonded carbon materials.