https://doi.org/10.1007/s100530170022
Radiative cooling of fullerene anions in a storage ring
Institute of Physics and Astronomy, University of Aarhus, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark
Corresponding author: a jua@ifa.au.dk
Received:
12
March
2001
Revised:
12
June
2001
Published online: 15 November 2001
Thermionic emission from hot fullerene anions, C
, has been measured in an electrostatic
storage ring for even N values from 36 to 96. The decay is quenched by radiative cooling and
hence the observations give information on the intensity of thermal radiation from fullerenes. The
experiments are analysed by comparison with a simulation which includes the quantisation of
photon energy and the statistics of emission. Experiments with heating of the molecules with a
laser beam confirm the interpretation of the observations in terms of radiative cooling and give an
independent estimate of the cooling rate for C
. The measured cooling rates agree in general
within a factor of two with the prediction from a classical dielectric model of a thermal radiation
intensity of 
eV/s for C60 at 1 400 K, scaling approximately with the 6th power of the
temperature and with the number of atoms in the molecule.
PACS: 36.40.-c – Atomic and molecular clusters / 36.40.Cg – Electronic and magnetic properties of clusters / 36.40.Qv – Stability and fragmentation of clusters / 36.40.Wa – Charged clusters / 39.10.+j – Atomic and molecular beam sources and techniques
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 2001
