Structural Studies of Fullerenes and its Derivatives by Elastic Electron Scattering

Electron scattering serves as a powerful probe for investigating geometrical features of target systems, a technique extensively employed in contemporary research [1, 2]. In this work, we present the geometric characterization of the fullerene C₂₄₀ and a bi-fullerene onion system C₆₀@C₂₄₀ as part of an extension of the previous work on elastic scattering off C₆₀ [2]. The interaction potential between the incident electron and the target is modelled by using both the annular square well (ASW) approach and a framework of density functional theory (DFT) within the jellium approximation [2, 3]. Using the partial-wave analysis technique [4], the differential cross section (DCS) is computed as a function of both the real (angular) and momentum (energy) coordinates. The DCS diffractograms, thus generated, encode information of the target’s geometric properties, which are unravelled by Fourier transforming the DCS.

References

 

[1] Aiswarya, et al. "Imaging the atomic scattering potential in centroidal diffraction of elastic electrons." Physical Review A Letter 113 (2026): L010801.

[2] Aiswarya, et al. "Simultaneous real and momentum space electron diffraction from a fullerene molecule." Physical Review Letters 133.3 (2024): 033002.

[3] Madjet, et al. "Photoionization of C60: a model study." Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics 41.10 (2008): 105101.

[4] C.J. Joachain, "Quantum collision theory." (1975), North-Holland, Amsterdam.