METAL VAPOR SYNTHESIS OF AIR-SENSITIVE TRANSITION-METAL FULLERIDES - EVIDENCE OF IR-SPECTRA

By metal vapor synthesis, we found the first evidence that Sn, In and Au could react with C60 forming a kind of bulk metal fullerides. IR tr ansmission spectra revealed that the M(x)C60 films (M = In, Sn and Au) showed new air-sensitive bands at about 1451, 1389 and 486 cm-1 besid es the lines of pristine C60. As the black M(x)C60 films exposed to th e air, they turned into the color of C60 film and these air-sensitive bands vanished meanwhile two new bands appeared at approximately 3590 cm-1 and approximately 552 cm-1. The absorbance near 550 cm-1 increase d slightly. The conversion of 1451 cm-1 line into 1428 cm-1 line, the Raman spectra and the UV-visible absorption spectra indicated that the cage of C60 does not disrupt in M(x)C60 films. With reference to the reported results of the EPR and photoelectron spectroscopy, these full erides were tentatively assigned to the complexes of M(x)C60. We found that the metal vapor synthesis is a powerful method to prepare variou s metal fullerides in which the metal may be of large cohesive energy and high boiling point.