Rotation of fullerene molecules in the crystal lattice of fullerene/porphyrin: C60 and Sc3N@C80

The dynamics of molecules in the solid-state is important to understand their physicochemical properties. The temperature-dependent dynamics of Sc3N@C80 and C60 in the crystal lattice containing nickel octaethylporphyrin (NiOEP) was studied with variable temperature X-ray diffraction (VT-XRD). The results indicate that the fullerene cages (both C60 and C80) in the crystal lattice present stronger libration than the co-crystallized NiOEP in the temperature range of 100–280 K. In contrast to the fullerene cage, the Sc3N cluster shows pronounced rotation roughly perpendicular to the plane of the co-crystallized NiOEP molecule driven by temperature. The obtained temperature dependent dynamic behavior of the Sc3N cluster is different from that of Ho2LuN and Lu3N, regardless of their rather similar structure, indicating the effect of the mass and size of the metal ions.