Electron Affinities of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <mml:mrow> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">C</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>60</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msub> </mml:mrow>
We combine cryogenic storage of fullerene anions up to minutes with laser photo-detachment spectroscopy and measure the electron affinities to be 2.684(3) eV for C_{60} and 2.7665(3) eV for C_{70}, which settle long-standing issues concerning these values. We find that C_{70}^{-} cools more efficiently than C_{60}^{-} and that this is due to differences in photon emission from electronically excited states populated by inverse internal conversion (recurrent fluorescence). We also find that intramolecular vibrational redistribution is no longer effective at low internal energies of C_{60}^{-} or C_{70}^{-}. Radiative cooling becomes extremely slow below intramolecular vibrational redistribution decoupling energies of 0.32(2) and 0.13(3) eV for C_{60}^{-} and C_{70}^{-}, respectively.
Authors
- Mikael Blom (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4042-3430)
- Sergio Díaz‐Tendero (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6253-6343)
- Manuel Alcamı́ (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3753-5215)
- M. Björkhage
- Henning T. Schmidt (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8209-5095)
- P. Reinhed (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-7786-3726)
- Paul Martini (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8627-1009)
- M. K. Kristiansson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8985-0516)
- MingChao Ji (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8184-4595)
- Ransel Barzaga (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9827-2762)
- H. Cederquist (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0815-0658)
- Michael Gatchell (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1028-7976)
- Stefan Rosén (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-7448-0030)
- Henning Zettergren (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2493-4161)
- A. Simonsson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6638-0291)
- Klavs Hansen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9746-3711)
- José E. Navarro Navarrete (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4392-9867)
- John Alexander (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4257-5799)
- Fernando Aguilar‐Galindo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2751-5592)
Institutions
- Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies (ES)
- Universidad de La Laguna (ES)
- Stockholm University (SE)
- Tianjin University (CN)
- AlbaNova (SE)
- Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (ES)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Physical Review Letters
- Published
- 2025-11-20
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1103/j2sv-7v9l
- Primary Topic
- Fullerene Chemistry and Applications
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00