Thin C-60 films were deposited by vacuum sublimation of soot on single-crys
tal and amorphous substrates. The absence of higher fullerenes was confirme
d by IR, Raman and UV-VIS spectroscopy. X-ray diffraction revealed a high d
ensity of stacking faults (probabilities in the range 10(-2)), correlated w
ith lattice distortions. Analysis of the W-VIS absorption bands yielded val
ues of the h(u)-->t(1g) and h(u)-->t(1u) optical gaps.