LIFETIME MEASUREMENTS WITH FULLERENE IONS IN A HEAVY-ION STORAGE-RING

Positive and negative fullerene ions have been stored in a heavy-ion s torage ring. We found confinement times (storage life-times) of the or der of 2 to 10 s, the limit being set by collisional destruction in th e background gas. The data also show a short decay time of the order o f some milliseconds. This component was considerably longer for the ne gative C60 and C70 ions than the neighboring negative C58 and C68 ions . We discuss the possible processes that may account for the observati on of the ms-decay times. The present technique may provide an excelle nt way to produce and study cold clusters.