Adatoms and nanoengineering of carbon

We present a new and general mechanism for inter-conversion of carbon structures via a catalytic exchange process, which operates under conditions of Frenkel pair generation. The mechanism typically lowers reaction barriers by a factor of four compared to equivalent uncatalysed reactions. We examine the relevance of this mechanism for fullerene growth, carbon onions and nanotubes, and dislocations in irradiated graphite.