Responses of Carbon Onions to High Energy Heavy Ion Irradiation

We report evidence for graphene layer rearrangements in heavy ion interactions with carbon onions at 140 MeV and 70 MeV per nucleon kinetic energies. Graphene layer rearrangements have been recently predicted in spherical and cylindrical multi-layer graphene systems. The implications of graphene layer rearrangement on the tribological performance of multi-layer nano-carbons in extreme environments are discussed.