The word melting is really inappropriate here. Melting is a phase transition in a bulk material. When a molecular solid melts the individual molecules are intact.
What is shown here is unimolecular dissociation by use of extremely high levels of vibrational excitation. But it's not exactly correct for buckyballs. As we showed in 1986 buckyballs will dissociate by spitting out c2 molecules until they reach c32 at which point the c32 species essentially explodes.
The word melting is really inappropriate here. Melting is a phase transition in a bulk material. When a molecular solid melts the individual molecules are intact.
What is shown here is unimolecular dissociation by use of extremely high levels of vibrational excitation. But it's not exactly correct for buckyballs. As we showed in 1986 buckyballs will dissociate by spitting out c2 molecules until they reach c32 at which point the c32 species essentially explodes.
But it's very cool animation
sobrien140 1 year ago