Phosphorescence of C60 in rare gas matrices

The phosphorescence of C60 in Kr and Xe matrices is reported. It consists of a progression of bands of monotonically decreasing intensity which belong to the hg(1) mode but in Xe weaker contributions from the t1u, t2u, hu and gu modes are also present. In Xe matrices, the phosphorescence stems from a distribution of sites extending up to 150 cm−1 to the red of the main and most prominent one having its origin at 12714 cm−1. The phosphorescence lifetime is 16 ± 1 μs in Xe and 60 ± 5 μs in Kr. The phosphorescence is attributed to the 3T2g state, whose gas phase energy we estimate to be 12925 ± 10 cm−1 from the gas-to-matrix shift.