In situ electron microscopy observations were made of dislocation dissociation and annihilation processes in individual nm-sized carbon onions. Essential to these processes was the counterintuitive motion of the 1/2⟨00•1⟩ edge from the outer surface to the inner region, which cross-linked or unlinked a large number of shells. The correlation with atomistic simulations and analysis of the energy which separated the strain and edge components indicated that this inward glide originated in the reduction of edge with each inwards glide step; an effect specific to the spherical topology.

Edge-Mediated Dislocation Processes in Multishell Carbon Nano-Onions? E.Akatyeva, J.Y.Huang, T.Dumitrică: Physical Review Letters, 2010, 105[10], 106102