Molecular fusion within fullerene clusters induced by femtosecond laser excitation

Molecular fusion is induced in clusters of fullerene molecules on excitation with fs laser pulses. The dependence of the mass distributions of the fused products on the initial cluster distribution are studied and results for (C₆₀)_N and (C₇₀)_N clusters are compared. The fused products decay by emitting C₂ molecules and the fragmentation spectrum is used to determine the initial excitation energy of the fused species. The threshold excitation energy needed to induce fusion is consistent with the energetic thresholds for molecular fusion of fullerenes determined previously in single collision experiments.