We report highly selective covalent bond modifications in collisions between keV alpha particles and van der Waals clusters of C-60 fullerenes. Surprisingly, C-119(+) and C-118(+) are the dominant molecular fusion products. We use molecular dynamics simulations to show that C-59(+) and C-58(+) ions-effectively produced in prompt knockout processes with He2+-react rapidly with C-60 to form dumbbell C-119(+) and C-118(+). Ion impact on molecular clusters in general is expected to lead to efficient secondary reactions of interest for astrophysics. These reactions are different from those induced by photons.

We present experimental evidence for the dominance of prompt single-atom knockout in fragmenting collisions between large polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon cations and He atoms at center-of-mass energies close to 100 eV. Such nonstatistical processes are shown to give highly reactive fragments. We argue that nonstatistical fragmentation is dominant for any sufficiently large molecular system under similar conditions.

We report experimental results for the ionization and fragmentation of weakly bound van der Waals clusters of n C-60 molecules following collisions with Ar2+, He2+, and Xe20+ at laboratory kinetic energies of 13 keV, 22.5 keV, and 300 keV, respectively. Intact singly charged C-60 monomers are the dominant reaction products in all three cases and this is accounted for by means of Monte Carlo calculations of energy transfer processes and a simple Arrhenius-type [C-60](n)(+) -> C-60(+) + (n - 1)C-60 evaporation model. Excitation energies in the range of only similar to 0.7 eV per C-60 molecule in a [C-60](13)(+) cluster are sufficient for complete evaporation and such low energies correspond to ion trajectories far outside the clusters. Still we observe singly and even doubly charged intact cluster ions which stem from even more distant collisions. For penetrating collisions the clusters become multiply charged and some of the individual molecules may be promptly fragmented in direct knock-out processes leading to efficient formations of new covalent systems. For Ar2+ and He2+ collisions, we observe very efficient C-119(+) and C-118(+) formation and molecular dynamics simulations suggest that they are covalent dumb-bell systems due to bonding between C-59(+) or C-58(+) and C-60 during cluster fragmentation. In the Ar2+ case, it is possible to form even smaller C-120-2m(+) molecules (m = 2-7), while no molecular fusion reactions are observed for the present Xe20+ collisions.

Non-statistical fragmentation processes may be important when Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon molecules (PAHs), fullerenes, or other large complex molecules collide with atoms and atomic ions. For collisions with hydrogen or helium this occurs for center-of-mass energies between a few tens to a few hundreds of electron volts and typically results in losses of single atoms. In such processes one forms much more reactive fragments than in statistical fragmentation, which instead are dominated by losses of C₂- or C₂H₂-molecules (H-atoms) from fullerenes and PAHs, respectively. An enhanced reactivity has recently been demonstrated for van der Waals clusters of C₆₀ molecules where prompt knockouts of single C-atoms from one of the fullerenes yield highly reactive C59+ fragments, which easily form covalent bonds with a C₆₀ molecule inside the clusters

We present scaling laws for absolute cross sections for non-statistical fragmentation in collisions between Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH/PAH(+)) and hydrogen or helium atoms with kinetic energies ranging from 50 eV to 10 keV. Further, we calculate the total fragmentation cross sections (including statistical fragmentation) for 110 eV PAH/PAH(+) + He collisions, and show that they compare well with experimental results. We demonstrate that non-statistical fragmentation becomes dominant for large PAHs and that it yields highly reactive fragments forming strong covalent bonds with atoms (H and N) and molecules (C6H5). Thus nonstatistical fragmentation may be an effective initial step in the formation of, e. g., Polycyclic Aromatic Nitrogen Heterocycles (PANHs). This relates to recent discussions on the evolution of PAHNs in space and the reactivities of defect graphene structures.

We have investigated the effectiveness of molecular hydrogen (H-2) formation from Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) which are internally heated by collisions with keV ions. The present and earlier experimental results are analyzed in view of molecular structure calculations and a simple collision model. We estimate that H-2 formation becomes important for internal PAH temperatures exceeding about 2200 K, regardless of the PAH size and the excitation agent. This suggests that keV ions may effectively induce such reactions, while they are unlikely due to, e.g., absorption of single photons with energies below the Lyman limit. The present analysis also suggests that H-2 emission is correlated with multi-fragmentation processes, which means that the [PAH-2H](+) peak intensities in the mass spectra may not be used for estimating H-2-formation rates.

The present work combines experimental and theoretical studies of the collision between keV ion projectiles and clusters of pyrene, one of the simplest polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Intracluster growth processes induced by ion collisions lead to the formation of a wide range of new molecules with masses larger than that of the pyrene molecule. The efficiency of these processes is found to strongly depend on the mass and velocity of the incoming projectile. Classical molecular dynamics simulations of the entire collision process-from the ion impact (nuclear scattering) to the formation of new molecular species-reproduce the essential features of the measured molecular growth process and also yield estimates of the related absolute cross sections. More elaborate density functional tight binding calculations yield the same growth products as the classical simulations. The present results could be relevant to understand the physical chemistry of the PAH-rich upper atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan.