Carbonaceous compounds are found in very diverse astronomical regions [1]. Significant amounts are detected in small dust grains, which show characteristic IR fingerprints revealing the presence of different functional groups [2]. Among the various materials investigated as carriers of these IR bands, a-C:H compounds grown by PECVD have led to the best agreement with observations [3]. In this work, we study the stability of carbonaceous dust analogues generated as deposits in He+CH4 RF discharges. To simulate the dust processing in the interstellar environments, the samples have been subjected to energetic electron bombardment. FTIR spectroscopy is employed to monitor the changes in the structure and composition of the carbonaceous films

This work has been funded by the MCINN of Spain under grants FIS2013-48087-C2-1-P and the Consolider Astromol, CDS2009-00038. We thank also the European Research Council for additional support under ERC-2013-Syg 610256-NANOCOSMOS

XXIII Europhysics Conference on Atomic and Molecular Physics of Ionized Gases, ESCAMPIG XXIII. -- Bratislava, Slovakia, July 12-16, 2016. -- https://www.escampig2016.org/

Peer Reviewed