THE STRUCTURAL AND VIBRATIONAL PROPERTIES OF C60 ADSORBED ON THE GRAPHITE(0001) SURFACE

Abstract

The exciting opportunities promised by the unique properties of C60 can only be fully exploited if the growth and properties of this material can be understood. To this end we have carried out a study of the structural and vibrational properties of C60 adsorbed on the graphite(0001) surface. We observed a novel high-order periodicity at monolayer coverages which indicates that even the weak corrugation potential of the surface can perturb the geometry of the overlayer. Vibrational spectra show a low-energy resonance in the inelastic scattering cross section which we correlate with a resonance feature observed in the electron attachment cross section of C60. The lack of a measurable perturbation in the resonance upon going from multilayer to monolayer coverage indicates that a weak physisorption bond exists between the molecules and the surface.