Ionisation and fragmentation dynamics of highly fluorinated fullerenes C60F46,48 and C70F54,56 after excitation with synchrotron radiation

Abstract Highly fluorinated fullerenes of the composition C 60 F x with x = 46, 48 and C 70 F x with x = 54, 56 have been ionised by single photon absorption. The resulting ions have been detected by means of time-of-flight mass spectrometry. For all species under investigation, the careful analysis of the photo-ion yield curves at threshold revealed identical ionisation energies of 12.0 eV with an uncertainty of ±0.1 eV for the C 60 -based molecules and ±0.2 eV for the C 70 -based ones.