Surface-induced fragmentation of higher fullerenes and endohedral metallofullerenes

We report the first results of surface collisions of pure hollow fullerenes (C-60, C-70 and C-78) and endohedral metallofullerenes (Y@C-82, Ca@C-82 an d Ca@C-84), isolated by liquid chromatography, against solid (silicon and g old) surfaces and self-assembled monolayer (SAM) films. The experiments hav e been performed by a reflectron type time-of-flight mass spectrometer modi fied for measuring surface-induced dissociation (SID) spectra. No surface-i nduced fragment is observed for the surface collisions with the solid surfa ces and the alkanethiolate SAM film. In contrast, sequential C-2-loss fragm ents have been observed for the surface collisions of hollow fullerenes and Ca@C-84 with the fluorinated SAM film. (C) 1999 American Institute of Phys ics. [S0021-9606(99)01219-2].