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Squeezing formaldehyde into C60 fullerene
- Source :
- Nature Communications, Vol 15, Iss 1, Pp 1-11 (2024)
- Publication Year :
- 2024
- Publisher :
- Nature Portfolio, 2024.
-
Abstract
- Abstract The cavity inside fullerene C60 provides a highly symmetric and inert environment for housing atoms and small molecules. Here we report the encapsulation of formaldehyde inside C60 by molecular surgery, yielding the supermolecular complex CH2O@C60, despite the 4.4 Å van der Waals length of CH2O exceeding the 3.7 Å internal diameter of C60. The presence of CH2O significantly reduces the cage HOMO-LUMO gap. Nuclear spin-spin couplings are observed between the fullerene host and the formaldehyde guest. The rapid spin-lattice relaxation of the formaldehyde 13C nuclei is attributed to a dominant spin-rotation mechanism. Despite being squeezed so tightly, the encapsulated formaldehyde molecules rotate freely about their long axes even at cryogenic temperatures, allowing observation of the ortho-to-para spin isomer conversion by infrared spectroscopy. The particle in a box nature of the system is demonstrated by the observation of two quantised translational modes in the cryogenic THz spectra.
- Subjects :
- Science
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 20411723
- Volume :
- 15
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- Directory of Open Access Journals
- Journal :
- Nature Communications
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- edsdoj.6a5940fd03964202935337481b8b97fb
- Document Type :
- article
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-46886-5