Spin-orbit effects in fullerenes Original Research Article

It is shown that spin-orbit effects on fullerene ν states can be treated by the model Hamiltonian Ξeffl·s, where Ξeff is an effective spin-orbit constant. The orbital angular momenta of the degenerate ν states are comparable of thos of atoms., and substantial magnetic dipole mixing of different ν states occurs, but Ξeff, which is proportional to the surface curvature and resulting nonzero overlaps of ν and σ orbitals on adjacent atoms, uis much less than the atomic carbon value. The predicted negative sign of Ξeff is supported by some of the electron spin resonance results on fullerene ions and triplet states.