Electric current induced light emission from C60 Original Research Article

We report the luminescence of C60 crystals and films due to the passage of an electrical current. The current-voltage behavior is highly non-linear with light-emission beyond a threshold voltage. The emission spectrum is featureless and resembles black-body radiation with an effective temperature on the order of 1700 K. We report experiments aimed at distinguishing between electro- and thermoluminescence.