No TitleThe rates of unlayered graphene formation in a supercooled carbon melt at low pressure

Elemental carbon has important structural diversity, ranging from nanotubes to graphite and diamond. Studies of primitive meteorite extracted micron-size core/rim carbon spheres suggest they formed via the solidification of condensed carbon vapor droplets, followed by gas-to-solid carbon coating to form the graphite rims. We show here how analytical models of reaction limited nucleation and growth can be used to connect thermal history (e.g., time at temperature) to electron microscope observations of mean graphene sheet size and number density. Atomistic models using the LCBOP semi-empirical potential show promise for estimating latent heat and the temperature dependence of barrier heights, which are not yet incorporated in the model. We also show that growth of 2D clusters from a 2D liquid takes place more rapidly than from a 3D liquid, which with suitable scaling might open the door to simulating growth over millisecond time scales in the study of liquid carbon’s solidification at low pressures.