Interaction of low-energy ions and atoms of light elements with a fluorinated carbon molecular lattice

The mechanism of interaction of low-energy atoms and ions of light elements (H, H+, He, Li, the kinetic energy of the particles 2-40 eV) with C6H6, C6F12, C60, and C60F48 molecules was studied by ab initio MD simulations and quantum-chemical calculations. It was shown that starting from 6 A from the carbon skeleton for the "C6H6 + proton" and "C60 + proton" systems, the electronic charge transfer from the aromatic molecule to H+ occurs with a probability close to 1. The process transforms the H+ to a hydrogen atom and the neutral C6H6 and C60 molecules to cation radicals. The mechanism of interaction of low-energy protons with C6F12 and C60F48 molecules has a substantially different character and can be considered qualitatively as the interaction between a neutral molecule and a point charge. The Coulomb perturbation of the system arising from the interaction of the uncompensated proton charge with the Mulliken charges of fluorine atoms results in an inversion of the energies of the electronic states localized on the proton and on the C6F12 and C60F48 molecules and makes the electronic charge transfer energetically unfavorable. On the different levels of theory, the barriers of the proton penetration for the C6F12 and C60F48 molecules are from two to four times lower than those for the corresponding parent systems (C6H6 and C60). The penetration barriers of the He atom and Li+ ion depend mainly on the effective radii of the bombarding particles. The theoretical penetration and escaped barriers for the "Li+ + C60" process qualitatively explain the experimental conditions of synthesis of the Li@C60 complex.