Pure and doped C₆₀

Materials: Fullerenes and fullerides

• Fullerenes discovered in 1985 by Curl, Kroto and Smalley
• The most abundant fullerene, the C₆₀ molecule has icosahedral molecular symmetry, and it can modified by endohedral and on-site doping.
• Solid C₆₀ forms an approximate face centered cubic fcc structure
• The fullerene molecule forms a variety of interesting bonded structures
• Solid C₆₀ can be doped with alkali and alkali earth metals , other elements and molecules.

Concepts

• Molecular orbit and electrons bands
  • Band insulators
  • Metals
• Molecular vibrations - phonons
• Molecular Jahn-Teller effect and electron- phonon coupling
  Correlations
  • Coulomb repulsion of electrons
  • Superconductivity
  • Orbital ordering

Method: IR spectroscopy

• Mix of tabletop and large scale experiments
• Measuring optical transmission, reflection as the function of frequency.

Applications