Molecular dynamics simulations of the dissociation of C₆₀ in the canonical approximation. The thermalization time was set to 100 ps. The confinement effects were simulated by implementing a repulsive spherical wall with a 60 Å radius. The fragmentation of C₆₀ causes the appearance of a variety of carbon clusters C_n (n < 60) over the 3500–4500 K temperature range. n_C is the number of carbon atoms in the cluster, n_ftag is the conversion efficiency. An example of how to read this graph: panel b, after a time of 4 ns, C₆₀ will have fragmented into ~3 C₂ units, which converts into an efficiency n_ftag of 10% for n_C = 2. One limiting case (not seen in the simulations) is a full conversion of C₆₀ into 30 C₂ units (i.e., n_frag = 100% for n_C = 2).