Quantum Scattering of Fullerene C₆₀ with Rare Gas Atoms

The discovery of fullerene C₆₀ opened new horizons in multidisciplinary scientific research. Designing new fullerene-based materials with specific targeted electronic structures, transport and optical properties remains an exciting challenge in these fields. For example, endohedral C₆₀ was proposed to be natural candidates for functional quantum architectures to store and manipulate atomic and molecular qubits [1]. Recently, single quantum state preparation and control has been achieved in high-resolution spectroscopy of gas-phase C₆₀ molecules, which showed their unusual spectrum of rotational levels associated with the symmetry-induced restrictions on the molecular motion [2]. 

The primary goal of the current research is to create a fully quantitative, quantum description of the C₆₀ molecule. A key part of our theoretical study is the understanding of collisional processes of C₆₀ with a buffer-gas of Ar and He atoms, including an analysis of the electronic structure of these complexes, their interaction anisotropy, and the collision-induced rotational and vibrational quenching of C₆₀. In this work, we emphasize the role of the icosahedral symmetry of C₆₀ on its collisional dynamics as potentially transformative feature for molecular spectroscopy. We have shown, for the first time, that scattering quenching times of highly rotational levels of the C₆₀ vibrational ground state are orders of magnitude longer than those that for molecules of lower symmetry.  In addition, using the icosahedral symmetry group we predict new optical selection rules. 

[1] W. Harneit, Spin Quantum Computing with Endohedral Fullerenes,  in “Endohedral Fullerenes: Electron Transfer and Spin”, (Springer , Ed. A. Popov).

[2] B. Changala, M. L. Weichman, K. F. Lee, M. E. Fermann, Jun Ye,  Science 363, 49-54 (2019).