Spectroscopic study of phase transformations between orthorhombic and tetragonal C<Subscript>60</Subscript> polymers

We present a detailed study of transformations between the orthorhombic and tetragonal polymeric states of C<Subscript>60</Subscript>. The transformations are characterised by Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction. We show that the transformation from the orthorhombic (O) phase to the tetragonal (T) phase is very fast and our results indicate that the transformation goes via an intermediate dimer (D) state in a two-stage process, O↦D and, D↦T transformations, where the second process is slower than the first. On the other hand, the transformation from the tetragonal to the orthorhombic phase is significantly slower, indicating a high-energy threshold to break the polymer bonds at the temperatures used. The results also support earlier suggestions that the tetragonal phase contains disordered dimers that can be viewed as lattice defects in the formation of higher polymers. Copyright EDP Sciences/Società Italiana di Fisica/Springer-Verlag 2006