Stone–Wales defect

In these materials, the rearrangement is thought to have important implications for the thermal,[3] chemical, electrical, and mechanical properties.

The defect is named after Anthony Stone and David J. Wales at the University of Cambridge, who described it in a 1986 paper[5] on the isomerization of fullerenes.

[citation needed] It has been proposed that the coalescence process of fullerenes or carbon nanotubes may occur through a sequence of such a rearrangements.

[citation needed] The activation energy for the simple atomic motion that gives the bond-rotation apparent in a Stone–Wales defects is fairly high—a barrier of several electronvolts.

[citation needed] In this scenario, the defects lead to a charge delocalization, which redirects an incoming electron down a given trajectory.