Photoionization and vacancy decay of endohedral atoms

Abstract

We demonstrate the role played by the fullerenes shell in the photoionization and vacancy decay of endohedral atoms A@C 60. It is shown, partly in the frame of a rather simple model that describes the fullerene shell, partly using only the assumption on the smallness of the atom A in comparison to the size of C 60 that it affects photoionization and the vacancy decay of A@C 60 profoundly. Namely, it leads to a number of new resonances in photoionization cross-section and other photoionization characteristics as well as strong modifications of the vacancy decay probabilities and to opening of new decay channels. We will discuss the problem of photon propagation through the C 60 shell and conclude that at any considered frequency ω, 0 ≤ ω ≤ 60 eV the C 60 enhances the incoming radiation. This shows non-metallic dielectric behavior of the 240 collectivized electrons in C 60. We also discuss the effects of C 60 upon the fast electron inelastic scattering. The results obtained are valid qualitatively also for other than C 60 molecules, e.g. for C 70 or C 76.