Molecular Motion of Endohedral Fullerenes in Single‐Walled Carbon Nanotubes

Abstract

Production and purification of iCeC 82Ce-containing endohedral fullerenes were produced by the so-called reversed arc technique developed by the Nagoya group as described previously. 1 A Ce-doped graphite rod (anode) was kept a few mm apart from a graphite block (cathode) in a vacuum chamber. The rod and the block were connected to an external power supply and high current was passed through them (300 -500 A). The vaporisation took place in He atmosphere (50 -100 Torr). The resulting soot contained 10 -20 % fullerenes.The fullerenes were soxhlet-extracted from the soot for ca. 4 hours in o-xylene. A twostage high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method was employed to isolate individual fullerene isomers. In the first stage, the o-xylene solution was passed through a Cosmosil 5PBB column (20 250 mm, Nacalai Tesque) with o-xylene eluent (flow rate: 11 ml/min). Figure 1 shows the HPLC chromatogram of Ce-containing endohedral fullerenes.

Observations of Chemical Reactions at the Atomic Scale: Dynamics of Metal‐Mediated Fullerene Coalescence and Nanotube Rupture

“…[12] The fullerenes can spontaneously enter carbon nanotubes and form molecular chains, thereby interacting with the SWNT interior by low directional but very effective van der Waals forces. [1][2][3][4] The fullerene cages [13] and also the metal atoms inside fullerene cages exhibit dynamic rotational and translational motion inside nanotubes, confirming that no covalent bonding takes place between the molecules and SWNT. [14] Figure 2 shows the first stages of reaction of Dy@C 82 in a SWNT (see also the movie in the Supporting Information).…”

Advances in tailoring the electronic properties of single-walled carbon nanotubes

“…, C 78 , C 80 , C 82 , C 90 fullerenes[8][9][10][236][237][238][239][240][241]. It was shown that the filling goes according to diffusion mechanism, and the filling degree can be as high as 100%.…”

Selective Imaging of Discrete Polyoxometalate Ions on Graphene Oxide under Variable Voltage Conditions

“…[1][2][3] Recent advances have led to the extensive use of aberration corrected transmission electron microscopes (ac-TEMs), which permit atomic resolution at low electron accelerating voltages and have made great advances in structural elucidation of carbon based nanomaterials as well as allowing the examination of the dynamics of molecules. [4][5][6][7][8][9] A key aspect for the rapid development of ac-TEM has been the emergence of electron transparent carbon-based supports that are compatible with the lowering of the accelerating voltage to ≤ 80 kV. Thus, carbon nanotubes and fullerenes have been widely used as molecular cages to isolate and image a wide variety of molecular scale nanostructures.…”