Eur. Phys. J. D 11, 413-434 (2000)
https://doi.org/10.1007/s100530070070

Classical dielectric models of fullerenes and estimation of heat radiation

Aarhus Center for Atomic Physics, Institute of Physics and Astronomy, University of Aarhus, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark

Received: 22 November 1999
Revised: 19 April 2000
Published online: 15 September 2000

Abstract

With the aim of describing the cooling of highly excited fullerene molecules by heat radiation, we consider simple classical, dielectric models for calculation of the electromagnetic response and show that the overall distribution of oscillator strength for electronic transitions can be represented fairly well by such a model. The connection to a layer model for graphite is discussed. For thermal emission of radiation from fullerenes, which depends on the oscillator strength at low frequencies only, the classical dielectric model leads to a prediction which should be applicable at high temperatures where the fine structure of the oscillator strength distribution is smeared out. We also estimate the emission from infrared-active vibrations, which dominate at low temperatures but play a minor role at the high temperatures where formation and decay of fullerene molecules take place.