Irradiation-Induced Structural Evolution and Functional Applications of Carbon-Based Materials: A Review

Carbon-based materials exhibit diverse structural responses to irradiation owing to their distinct dimensionality, degree of graphitization, surface chemistry, and pore architecture. Although irradiation has traditionally been regarded as a source of structural damage, increasing evidence demonstrates that controlled irradiation can be deliberately utilized to tailor defects, surfaces, interfaces, and pore structures, thereby enabling desirable functional properties. This review summarizes recent progress in the irradiation-induced structural evolution and functional applications of four representative carbon-based materials, including graphene-based materials, carbon nanotubes, carbon fibers, and activated carbon/biochar. Particular attention is given to the characteristic irradiation responses of different carbon architectures. In graphene, irradiation predominantly induces vacancies, reconstructed defects, and surface functionalization, providing active sites for environmental remediation. Carbon nanotubes additionally undergo inter-tube cross-linking and welding, enabling enhanced mechanical performance and tunable electronic properties. For carbon fibers, irradiation mainly regulates surface chemistry and fiber matrix interactions, facilitating interface engineering in high-performance composites. In activated carbon and biochar, irradiation modifies pore accessibility, structural disorder, and surface functional groups, thereby influencing adsorption and electrochemical performance. These distinct responses demonstrate that irradiation can evolve from a conventional damage process into a controllable materials-engineering strategy when appropriate irradiation conditions are employed. Finally, current challenges associated with optimal irradiation conditions, quantitative defect identification, and irradiation structure–property relationships are discussed. Based on these distinct responses, we propose an architecture-dependent irradiation–structure–function (A-ISF) framework that links the initial carbon architecture and irradiation conditions to dominant energy-deposition mechanisms, structural evolution pathways, property modulation, and ultimately functional applications. Within this framework, irradiation engineering is interpreted as a competition between beneficial structural modification and excessive radiation damage, giving rise to an application-dependent optimal irradiation window.