Icy mantles of benzonitrile, an aromatic with a cyanide side chain that has recently been detected in the interstellar medium, were subjected to vacuum ultraviolet photon irradiation and found to form a residue. The residue was removed from the substrate and placed on a Quantifoil grid for electron microscopy analysis. Transmission electron microscopy showed Quantum Dot (QD) and Nitrogen-doped Graphene (N-Graphene) sheets. Diffraction and Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy revealed the crystalline nature and carbon-nitrogen composition, of the observed graphene sheet. This is the first result showing QD and N-Graphene synthesis in ice irradiation at interstellar temperatures.
@article{arxiv.2008.10011,
title = {N-Graphene Synthesized in Astrochemical Ices},
author = {K K Rahul and M Ambresh and D Sahu and J K Meka and S -L Chou and Y -J Wu and D Gupta and A Das and J -I Lo and B -M Cheng and B N Raja Sekhar and A Bhardwaj and H Hill and P Janardhan and N J Mason and B Sivaraman},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2008.10011},
year = {2020}
}