Electrical conductivity of nanostructured and C-60-modified aluminum

In this paper, we study the electrical conductivity of nanostructured C-60-modified aluminum, and the possibility of optimizing its electrical and mechanical properties. The model proposed allows estimating the electrical conductivity of the material at low surface filling factor. A number of samples with different C-60 mass fractions and aluminum crystallites sizes have been obtained and investigated; a mean crystalline size, conductivity, and hardness of these samples have been determined. A theoretical model has been compared to the experimental data. The model is in qualitative agreement with the experiment. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy studies of the material structure indicate the presence of covalent bonds between the aluminum in the clusters and the C-60 molecules, and they are consistent with the proposed shell model.