Optical Spectroscopy of Graphullerene: 2D layers of covalently bonded fullerenes

The creation and study of synthetic carbon allotropes has been of interest for decades. Graphullerene is the most recent addition. Magnesium-doped, graphullerite crystals grown via chemical vapor transport (CVT) are deintercalated, resulting in mechanically exfoliatable, hexagonal arrangements of covalently bonded, 2D layers of fullerenes (C₆₀). Preliminary results confirm the Raman and photoluminescence (PL) results of Meirzadeh, et al¹. In this study, we use optical spectroscopic techniques, including polarized and low-frequency Raman, to characterize this novel carbon nanomaterial. A detailed comparison of the spectra using 473 nm, 514 nm, and 532 nm, 633 nm and 785 nm excitation suggests that the constituent fullerenes remain resonant under 514 nm excitation. Further, the polarized Raman spectra confirm the assignment of the two features seen in graphullerene to be those associated with the C₆₀ within the 2D lattice.



1. Meirzadeh, E., Evans, A.M., Rezaee, M. et al. A few-layer covalent network of fullerenes. Nature 613, 71–76 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05401-w