Ionisation and fragmentation dynamics of highly fluorinated fullerenes C 60F 46,48 and C 70F 54,56 after excitation with synchrotron radiation

Highly fluorinated fullerenes of the composition C ₆₀F _x with x = 46, 48 and C ₇₀F _x with x = 54, 56 have been ionised by single photon absorption. The resulting ions have been detected by means of time-of-flight mass spectrometry. For all species under investigation, the careful analysis of the photo-ion yield curves at threshold revealed identical ionisation energies of 12.0 eV with an uncertainty of ±0.1 eV for the C ₆₀-based molecules and ±0.2 eV for the C ₇₀-based ones.