Near-Infrared Photoluminescence Properties of Endohedral Mono- and Dithulium Metallofullerenes

Zhiyong Wang; Noriko Izumi; Yusuke Nakanishi; Takeshi Koyama; Toshiki Sugai; Masayoshi Tange; Toshiya Okazaki; Hisanori Shinohara

doi:10.1021/acsnano.5b07780

Near-Infrared Photoluminescence Properties of Endohedral Mono- and Dithulium Metallofullerenes

ACS Nano. 2016 Apr 26;10(4):4282-7. doi: 10.1021/acsnano.5b07780. Epub 2016 Apr 11.

Authors

Zhiyong Wang¹, Noriko Izumi¹, Yusuke Nakanishi¹, Takeshi Koyama², Toshiki Sugai¹, Masayoshi Tange³, Toshiya Okazaki³, Hisanori Shinohara¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry and Institute for Advanced Research, Nagoya University , Nagoya 464-8602, Japan.
² Department of Applied Physics, Nagoya University , Nagoya 464-8603, Japan.
³ Nanotube Research Center, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) , Tsukuba 305-8565, Japan.

PMID: 27057619
DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.5b07780

Abstract

The optical properties of endohedral metallofullerene molecules can be tuned by changing the fullerene size as well as the number of metal atoms inside the fullerene cages. In this work we have synthesized and isolated a series of mono- and dithulium metallofullerenes, including Tm@C82 (isomers I, II, III, IV), Tm@C88 (I-IV), Tm2@C82 (I-III), and (Tm2C2)@C82 (I-III). Near-infrared photoluminescence is observed from the thulium metallofullerenes. By changing the number of Tm ion in the fullerene cage, we have found that one can vary and tune the photoluminescence from 1200 to 1300-2000 nm observed for Tm(2+) (4f(13)) in Tm@C88 and Tm(3+) (4f(12)) in (Tm2C2)@C82, respectively. The photoluminescence intensity depends sensitively on the fullerene cages. (Tm2C2)@C82 (III) exhibits the highest photoluminescence intensity among the three structural isomers because of its large HOMO-LUMO energy gap.

Keywords: fullerene; lanthanide; metallofullerene; photoluminescence; thulium.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't