Investigating the fragmentation of C60 induced by nanosecond laser

Abstract

The C60 fragmentation induced by nanosecond (ns) laser was studied using a time-of-flight mass spectrometer. The average kinetic energies of fullerene ions C60-2n+ (1≤n≤14) was extracted from the measured full width at half maximum of ion beam profiles. The measured data show approximately linear increase with the mass decreasing and little variation in the present range of laser fluences. To describe the primary formation of fullerene ions, a sequential decay chain including one ionization step and one or several C2 emission is assumed and a second photo-absorption process in later part of the laser pulse is considered. The experimental results can be explained reasonably by the description of photoion formation.