Metastable dissociative decay of fluorofullerene negative ions

Abstract In the course of the resonant electron capture mass-spectrometric study of the fluorinated fullerenes C 60 F 18 , C 60 F 36 and C 60 F 48 , the processes of the metastable (slow, delayed) decay of negative ions by loss of fluorine atoms, effectively competing with electron autodetachment were detected. Theoretical analysis of the unimolecular decomposition, carried out on the basis of the statistical RRKM theory, showed that the excess of the appearance energy of fragment ions over the energy threshold results from a kinetic shift. It is shown that rapid processes of fragmentation of fluorofullerene molecular ions take place in addition to a metastable decay.