| Issue |
EPL
Volume 109, Number 6, March 2015
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | 63001 | |
| Number of page(s) | 6 | |
| Section | Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/109/63001 | |
| Published online | 25 May 2015 | |
Fusion mechanism in fullerene-fullerene collisions: The deciding role of giant oblate-prolate motion
Institut für Theoretische Physik, Technische Universität Dresden - D-01062 Dresden, Germany
(a) Ruediger.Schmidt@tu-dresden.de
Received: 19 December 2014
Accepted: 17 March 2015
We provide answers to long-lasting questions in the puzzling behavior of fullerene-fullerene fusion: Why are the fusion barriers so exceptionally high and the fusion cross sections so extremely small? An ab initio nonadiabatic quantum molecular-dynamics (NA-QMD) analysis of C60 + C60 collisions reveals that the dominant excitation of an exceptionally “giant” oblate-prolate 
mode plays the key role in answering both questions. From these microscopic calculations, a macroscopic collision model is derived, which reproduces the NA-QMD results. Moreover, it predicts analytically fusion barriers for different fullerene-fullerene combinations in excellent agreement with experiments.
PACS: 36.40.-c – Atomic and molecular clusters
© EPLA, 2015
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