A laser plasma reactor is employed to produce a new class of materials involving bonding between early transition metals and carbon, termed metallo-carbohedrenes, or 'Met-Cars'. The cation Ti8C12+ was the first of these compounds to be discovered, followed rapidly by findings which also established the existence of vanadium, hafnium and zirconium cation analogs, and anion and neutral species. In the presence of the plasma, a reaction mechanism proceeds to fully dehydrogenate small hydrocarbons and enable them to undergo the formation of reactive metal-carbon species. It has also been found that this laser-induced plasma reaction technique can be utilized to make a wide variety of materials with varying composition among the transition metal-nitrides, oxides and silicides.