Acceleration of Cn+60 molecules to high energy

For the first time fullerene ions have been accelerated to high energy (4–36 MeV). Negative ions of C − 60 were produced in an ion source with a Cs gun and injected into a tandem accelerator. The change of charge from negative to positive was achieved by collisions with N 2 molecules in a gas cell at the high voltage terminal before the second acceleration step. To identify the accelerated molecular ions, the injected beam was pulsed, and time-of-flight measurements combined with energy measurements allowed mass and charge assignments.