Combining total energy calculations with a search of phase space, we investigate the microscopic fusion mechanism of C 60 fullerenes. We find that the ͑2+2͒ cycloaddition reaction, a necessary precursor for fullerene fusion, may be accelerated inside a nanotube. Fusion occurs along the minimum energy path as a finite sequence of Stone-Wales transformations, determined by a graphical search program. Search of the phase space using the "string method" indicates that Stone-Wales transformations are multistep processes, and provides detailed information about the transition states and activation barriers associated with fusion. The discovery of fullerenes 1 and nanotubes 2 has ignited strong interest in these and related carbon nanostructures. Due to the unusual stability of the graphitic sp 2 bond, largescale structural changes in bulk fullerene crystals occur only under extremely high pressures and temperatures.3,4 On the other hand, fullerenes in nanotube peapods 5 have been observed to fuse 6,7 at relatively low temperatures near 1100°C, significantly below the decomposition temperature of fullerenes 8 or graphite 9 near 4000°C. No information is available about the detailed fusion process except the obvious conclusion that strong sp 2 bonds should not be broken during structural rearrangements leading to fusion. In view of the fact that even minor structural changes in carbon nanostructures may modify significantly their physical properties, including magnetism, 10,11 there is additional interest in understanding fusion as a way to control large-scale structural transformations.Here we study the microscopic fusion mechanism of fullerenes. We show that large-scale structural changes, including fusion, can be achieved by a finite sequence of generalized Stone-Wales transformations, which involve only bond rotations and avoid bond breaking. Using a graphical search program, 12 we determine the optimum reaction pathway for thermal fusion of fullerenes. Search of the phase space by the "string method" provides detailed information about the optimum pathway, including the identification of activation barriers and transition-state geometries. We find the fusion process to be exothermic. The fusion dynamics is fast in spite of the formidable total activation barrier close to 5 eV, associated with each Stone-Wales transformation. These bond rotations turn out to be multistep processes with lower individual activation barriers.We calculate the total energy of the fullerene system using an electronic Hamiltonian that had been applied successfully to describe the formation of peapods, 13 multiwall nanotubes, 14 the dynamics of the "bucky shuttle," 15 and the melting of fullerenes. 8 Our numerical results are compared to those of ab initio density functional calculations, which use a numerical basis to represent localized atomic orbitals, 16 and which have been applied successfully to nanotubes and fullerenes. 17 Structural optimization is performed using the conjugate gradient technique. Our total energy formalism describe...