Eur. Phys. J. D 43, 133-136 (2007)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2007-00072-2

Formation of higher-order fullerene dianions in collisions with Na atoms

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Aarhus, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
² School of Physics and Information Optoelectronics, Henan University, Kaifeng, P.R. China
³ Institute of Applied Physics, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-0006, Japan

Corresponding authors: ^a hvelplun@phys.au.dk - ^b tomita@bk.tsukuba.ac.jp

Received: 23 July 2006
Published online: 24 May 2007

Abstract

We have measured electron capture cross sections in collisions between higher order fullerene anions C_n^- (n=76, 78, 82, 84, 86, 90 and 96) and Na atoms. The ions were produced in an electrospray ion source (ESI) and accelerated to an energy of 50 keV. The measured cross section for dianion formation is three times larger for C₉₆ than that for C₆₀. The latter cross section was earlier found to be 36 Å². The dramatic increase of the cross section with fullerene size is explained by means of the curve crossing model for electron transfer.