Dynamical fragmentation of C60 ions

The distribution of fragments resulting from collisions between 50-200-keV C60(+) ions and H2 and He is found to follow approximately a simple power law I(m) = cp exp m, where p is a constant depending on both energy and target gas, and m is the number of missing 'pairs' of carbon atoms. Based on this observation, a new dynamical fragmentation model involving the ratio of two characteristic times is proposed. In collisions by 300-keV C60(2+) ions, the singly charged products are distributed quite differently, which implies the first evidence of the presence of charge-separation reactions. (Author)