  Linear and nonlinear dissipative structures emerge in the irradiated single
and multi walled carbon nano-tubes in the form of collision cascades and
thermal spikes. These are diagnosed by the information theoretic tools of
fractal dimension and relative entropy by the probabilistic description of
dissipative structures using the measure that depends upon the energy of the
irradiating ion and the incremental energy step. Multi scaling of the measure
of the probability distributions is shown to induce variability of fractal
dimension of the sputtered carbon atoms and clusters. Fractal dimension and
relative entropy care shown to unambiguously distinguish and identify the
information generating collision cascades and thermal spikes.

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics