Plasmonic inter-Coulombic decay processes in a Na cluster inside a giant fullerene

Spectroscopic studies of atomic clusters and their endohedral complexes have gained significant attention in recent past owing to the multitude of decay processes present in these systems [1, 2]. The photo-induced plasmon excitation in C₂₄₀ and its subsequent de-excitation leads to a transfer of some energy to Na₂₀ enclosed in the fullerene. This resonant inter-Coulombic decay (RICD) process leads to plasmonic enhancement to the ionization yield from the dopant Na₂₀. This in general suggests a possibility to induce remote spectroscopic events across molecules. Moreover, it is possible to detect plasmonic RICD signal experimentally using the standard velocity map imaging (VMI) coincidence technique [3]. Our computation involves a DFT based modelling of the cluster endofullerene ground state and its photoionization process in a linear-response many-body frame.

References:

[1]Vitali Averbukh and Lorenz S Cederbaum. Interatomic electronic decay in endohedral fullerenes. Phys. Rev. Lett., 96, 053401 (2006).



[2] Rasheed Shaik et al., Plasmonic Resonant Intercluster Coulombic Decay, Phys. Rev. Lett 130, 233201 (2023).



[3] G. Basnayake et al., Three dimensional (3D) velocity map imaging: From technique to

application, J. Phys. B, 55, 023001 (2022).