Stability of radio-metallofullerenes against beta-decay

The effect of β--decay on the stability of metallofullerenes was investigated for three decay chains of 155Sm-155Eu, 161Gd-161Tb and 177Yb-177Lu. For the former two cases, the metallofullerenes were found stable even after the β--decay while in the case of 177Yb, the metallofullerene became unstable after β--decay. The present results point to the fact that metallofullerenes are stable against ordinary β--decay recoil energies, but they become unstable if the oxidation state of the metal atom is changed by nuclear transformation. (author)