On the collisionally induced destruction of short- and long-lived fullerene ions

Collisionally induced destruction of fullerene ions Cn (48 ⩽ n ⩽ 90) has been studied in single-pass and storage ring experiments. The collisionally induced destruction cross section at 45 keV varies with time for fullerene ions other than those which occupy ‘magic numbers’ in mass spectra such as C60+ and C70+. This observation indicates that these fullerene ions possess high internal energies when they leave the source. It is found that a fraction of these hot ions become stable as a result of cooling on a timescale of milliseconds.