Radioactive Metallofullerenes: Hot Atom Chemistry Aspects

Abstract

The n,γ‐reaction of metallofullerenes of Tb, Sm and Sc₃N@C₈₀ is studied. Unusually high compared to trivalent lanthanofullerenes retention yield is observed for ¹⁵³Sm@C_2n. The recoil implosion yield of ¹⁷⁷Lu atom in molecularly tight mixture of Lu diphthalocyanine and C₆₀ is measured. It is shown that possibly unfavorable geometry of target/projectile system can not explain low implosion yields observed so far. Possible role of chemical properties of recoil atom at hot atom–cage interaction and mechanisms of energy dissipation are discussed.

Keywords:

• Metallofullerenes
• enrichment
• neutron activation
• Szilard–Chalmers
• retention
• recoil implosion
• radiation stability

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to V.P. Sedov for supplied LuPc₂, S.V. Kolesnik for HPLC analyses, P.N. Moskalev and Yu.E. Loginov for useful discussions and M.E. Emelyanov for technical assistance. This work is supported by Research Program of RAS “Influence of atomic‐crystal and electronic structure on properties of condensed matter,” and by Russian Agency on Science and Innovations project “Development of technology of preparation of multifunctional materials based on carbon.”