Ultrafast dynamics and fragmentation of C60 in intense laser pulses

Abstract

The radiation-induced fragmentation of the C60 fullerene was investigated by the tight-binding electron-ion dynamics simulations. In intense laser field, the breathing vibrational mode is much more strongly excited than the pentagonal-pinch mode. The fragmentation effect was found more remarkable at long wavelength lambda>800 nm rather than the resonant wavelengths due to the internal laser-induced dipole force, and the production ratio of C and C2 rapidly grows with increasing wavelength. By such fragmentation law, C atoms, C2 dimers or large Cn fragments could be selectively obtained by changing the laser wavelength. And the fragmentation of C60 by two laser pulses like the multi-step atomic photoionization was investigated.