A
carbon material without long-range crystalline order. Short-range order exists, but with deviations of the interatomic distances and/or interbonding angles with respect to the
graphite lattice as well as to the
diamond lattice.
Note:
The term amorphous carbon is restricted to the description of carbon materials with localized π-electrons as described by P.W.Anderson (
Phys. Rev., 1958,
109, 1492). Deviations in the C–C distances greater than 5%
(i.e.
,
where
is the inter-atomic distance in the crystal lattice for the
as well as for the
configuration) occur in such materials, as well as deviations in the bond angles because of the presence of '
dangling bonds'. The above description of amorphous carbon is not applicable to carbon materials with two-dimensional structural elements present in all
pyrolysis residues of carbon compounds as polyaromatic layers with a nearly ideal interatomic distance of
and an extension greater than
.
Source:
PAC, 1995, 67, 473
(Recommended terminology for the description of carbon as a solid (IUPAC Recommendations 1995))
on page 477
Cite as:
IUPAC. Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 2nd ed. (the "Gold Book"). Compiled by A. D. McNaught and A. Wilkinson. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford (1997). XML on-line corrected version: http://goldbook.iupac.org (2006-) created by M. Nic, J. Jirat, B. Kosata; updates compiled by A. Jenkins. ISBN 0-9678550-9-8.
doi:10.1351/goldbook.
