Growth of individual carbon composite nanostructures on the faceted TiC() surface

We report here the thermally activated growth of carbon composite nanostructures on the faceted TiC(1 1 1) single crystal surface. As a result of a high temperature anneal over 2500 K complex structures are growing from well defined nucleation sites at the cusps of the faceted surface. The growth of the complex shaped nanostructures is initialized by the formation of Ti nanodroplets and is fed by the thermal decomposition of TiC. The shape of the nanostructures is determined by the minimum energy configuration of their encapsulating carbon shell.