Ion beam radiation damage of thin fullerene films

Previous work on the radiation damage of fullerene by energetic ions does not unambiguously reveal whether fullerene destruction is dominantly due to the transfer of nuclear, or electronic energy. New data is presented, using new systems of analysis, which show that in general it is collisionally induced destruction, due to nuclear transfers, which dominates. This even remains the case when the absolute amount of energy transferred by means of electronic excitation of the fullerene exceeds that from nuclear transfers by more than a hundredfold. Only in the specific case of high energy, heavy ion bombardments can major bulk destruction of fullerene be assigned to energy transfers which are specifically electronic in origin. In addition, however, there are quite minor destructive influences due to electronic energy transfer during irradiations of thin film fullerene targets with low energy proton beams.