Endohedral fullerenes: a concurrent characterization by means of synchrotron radiation X-ray and IR spectroscopy

Endohedral Metal Fullerenes exhibit a great variety of physical and chemical properties depending on the metal inserted into the cage. These systems are molecular conductors, magnets, ferroelectrics and also superconductors representing extremely promising materials for advanced technologies such as nano-medicine. Here we present temperature-dependent XANES and FTIR investigations of two La-C82 EMF isomers. The combinatorial investigation shows that guest ions move inside the cage perturbing the vibrational states of the carbon cage due to the charge transfer dynamics. Moreover, the principal component analysis points out a discrepancy between temperature-dependent FTIR and XANES based on the occurrence of a non-equilibrium process between charge transfer and cage dynamics. We propose to perform simultaneous time-resolved X-ray and infrared spectroscopy studies to resolve the complex interplay among charge, structure and electric properties of these systems.