On the Structural and Vibrational Properties of Solid Endohedral Metallofullerene Li@C60

Vrankić, Martina; Nakagawa, Takeshi; Menelaou, Melita; Takabayashi, Yasuhiro; Yoshikane, Naoya; Matsui, Keisuke; Kokubo, Ken; Kato, Kenichi; Kawaguchi-Imada, Saori; Kadobayashi, Hirokazu; Arvanitidis, John; Kubota, Yoshiki; Prassides, Kosmas (2024) On the Structural and Vibrational Properties of Solid Endohedral Metallofullerene Li@C60. Inorganics, 12 (4). ISSN 2304-6740

PDF - Published Version - article Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (4MB)

Abstract

The endohedral lithium fulleride, Li+@C60•−, is a potential precursor for new families of molecular superconducting and electronic materials beyond those accessible to date from C60 itself. Solid Li@C60 comprises (Li@C60)2 dimers, isostructural and isoelectronic with the (C59N)2 units found in solid azafullerene. Here, we investigate the structural and vibrational properties of Li@C60 samples synthesized by electrolytic reduction routes. The resulting materials are of high quality, with crystallinity far superior to that of their antecedents isolated by chemical reduction. They permit facile, unambiguous identification of both the reduced state of the fulleride units and the interball C-C bonds responsible for dimerization. However, severe orientational disorder conceals any crystal symmetry lowering due to the presence of dimers. Diffraction reveals the adoption of a hexagonal crystal structure (space group P63/mmc) at both low temperatures and high pressures, typically associated with close-packing of spherical monomer units. Such a situation is reminiscent of the structural behavior of the high-pressure Phase I of solid dihydrogen, H2.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	endofullerenes ; dimerization ; vibrational spectroscopy ; synchrotron X-ray diffraction ; high pressure
Subjects:	NATURAL SCIENCES > Chemistry
Divisions:	Division of Materials Physics
Depositing User:	Ana Zečević
Date Deposited:	22 Jul 2024 09:43
URI:	http://fulir.irb.hr/id/eprint/8958
DOI:	10.3390/inorganics12040099

Actions (login required)

View Item