Molecular fullerenes

Also fascinating developments in various fields of applications such as optoelectronic-, materials- and medical applications are just barely touched. Our main intention was to put the focus on molecular fullerene chemistry. 

Physical Properties of Molecular Fullerenes Under Pressure. 91... 

The reactivity of the molecular fullerene solid resembles the expected pattern for a homogeneous material. Only a small prereactivity at 700 K indicates that a fullcrcne-oxygen complex [12] is formed as an intermediate stoichiometric compound [15, 105], At 723 K the formation of this compound and the complete oxidation are in a steady state [12, 106, 107] with the consequence of a stable rate of oxidation which is nearly independent of the bum-off of the fullerene solid. This solid transforms prior to oxidation into a disordered polymeric material. The process is an example of the alternative reaction scenario sketched above for the graphite oxidation reaction. The simultaneous oxidation of many individual fullerene molecules. leaving behind open cages with radical centers, is the reason for the polymerization. 

The growth of a well ordered fullerene monolayer, by means of molecular beam epitaxy, has been used for the controlled nucleation of single crystalline thin films. The quality and stability of molecular thin films has been shown... 

Campbell E B and Hertel I V 1992 Molecular beam studies of fullerenes Carbon 8 1157-65... 

Figure 2-100. CORINA-generated 3D molecular model of a fullerene dendrlmer with 1278 atoms (762 non-hydrogen atoms).

Fullerenes can be considered as a molecular full stop to organic synthesis highly complex and possibly very useful molecules are formed by self-organization of carbon atoms in the vapor phase. Sometimes synthetic chemists are not needed. 

Fullerenes are described in detail in Chapter 2 and therefore only a brief outline of their structure is presented here to provide a comparison with the other forms of carbon. The C o molecule, Buckminsterfullerene, was discovered in the mass spectrum of laser-ablated graphite in 1985 [37] and crystals of C o were fust isolated from soot formed from graphite arc electrodes in 1990 [38]. Although these events are relatively recent, the C o molecule has become one of the most widely-recognised molecular structures in science and in 1996 the codiscoverers Curl, Kroto and Smalley were awarded the Nobel prize for chemistry. Part of the appeal of this molecule lies in its beautiful icosahedral symmetry - a truncated icosahedron, or a molecular soccer ball, Fig. 4A. 

Since the structure and properties of fullerene solids are strongly dependent on the structure and properties of the constituent fullerene molecules, we first review the structure of the molecules, which is followed by a review of the structure of the molecular solids formed from Ceo, C70 and higher mass fullerenes, and finally the structure of Cgo crystals. 

In the synthesis of Ceo, larger molecular weight fullerenes C (n > 60) are also formed, by far the most abundant being C70. However, sufficient quantities of C76, C78, and Cs4 have also been isolated to be studied in some detail. 

The most extensive calculations of the electronic structure of fullerenes so far have been done for Ceo- Representative results for the energy levels of the free Ceo molecule are shown in Fig. 5(a) [60]. Because of the molecular nature of solid C o, the electronic structure for the solid phase is expected to be closely related to that of the free molecule [61]. An LDA calculation for the crystalline phase is shown in Fig. 5(b) for the energy bands derived from the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) for Cgo, and the band gap between the LUMO and HOMO-derived energy bands is shown on the figure. The LDA calculations are one-electron treatments which tend to underestimate the actual bandgap. Nevertheless, such calculations are widely used in the fullerene literature to provide physical insights about many of the physical properties. 

Calculations for Ceo in the LDA approximation [62, 60] yield a narrow band (- 0.4 0.6 eV bandwidth) solid, with a HOMO-LUMO-derived direct band gap of - 1.5 eV at the X point of the fee Brillouin zone. The narrow energy bands and the molecular nature of the electronic structure of fullerenes are indicative of a highly correlated electron system. Since the HOMO and LUMO levels both have the same odd parity, electric dipole transitions between these levels are symmetry forbidden in the free Ceo moleeule. In the crystalline solid, transitions between the direct bandgap states at the T and X points in the cubic Brillouin zone arc also forbidden, but are allowed at the lower symmetry points in the Brillouin zone. The allowed electric dipole... 

For C70, molecular orbital calculations [60] reveal a large number of closely-spaced orbitals both above and below the HOMO-LUMO gap [60]. The large number of orbitals makes it difficult to assign particular groups of transitions to structure observed in the solution spectra of C70. UV-visible solution spectra for higher fullerenes (C n = 76,78,82,84,90,96) have also been reported [37, 39, 72]. 

At higher frequencies (above 200 cm ) the vibrational spectra for fullerenes and their cry.stalline solids are dominated by the intramolecular modes. Because of the high symmetry of the Cgo molecule (icosahedral point group Ih), there are only 46 distinct molecular mode frequencies corresponding to the 180 6 = 174 degrees of freedom for the isolated Cgo molecule, and of these only 4 are infrared-active (all with Ti symmetry) and 10 are Raman-active (2 with Ag symmetry and 8 with Hg symmetry). The remaining 32 eigcnfrequencies correspond to silent modes, i.e., they are not optically active in first order. 

Raman and infrared spectroscopy provide sensitive methods for distinguishing Ceo from higher molecular weight fullerenes with lower symmetry (eg., C70 has >5/1 symmetry). Since most of the higher molecular weight fullerenes have lower symmetry as well as more degrees of freedom, they have many more infrared- and Raman-active modes. 

Because the cohesive energy of the fullerene Cyo is —7.29 eV/atom and that of the graphite sheet is —7.44 eV/atom, the toroidal forms (except torus C192) are energetically stable (see Fig. 5). Finite temperature molecular-dynamics simulations show that all tori (except torus Cm2) are thermodynamically stable. 

The synthesis of molecular carbon structures in the form of C q and other fullerenes stimulated an intense interest in mesoscopic carbon structures. In this respect, the discovery of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) [1] in the deposit of an arc discharge was a major break through. In the early days, many theoretical efforts have focused on the electronic properties of these novel quasi-one-dimensional structures [2-5]. Like graphite, these mesoscopic systems are essentially sp2 bonded. However, the curvature and the cylindrical symmetry cause important modifications compared with planar graphite. 

Quite apart from the fullerene cluster molecules, numerous other molecular allotropes of carbon, C , have been discovered in the gases formed by the laser vaporization/supersonic expansion of graphite. The products are detected by mass... 

The tremendous burst of excitement which attended the initial isolation in 1990 of weighable amounts of separated fullerenes has been followed by an unparalleled and sustained surge of activity as chemists throughout the world rushed to investigate the chemical reactivity of these novel molecular forms of carbon. 

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