Probing excited electronic states and ionisation mechanisms of fullerenes

Fullerenes are interesting model systems for probing the complex, fundamental electron dynamics and ionisation mechanisms of large molecules and nanoparticles. In this Tutorial Review we explain how recent experimental and theoretical advances are providing insight into the interesting phenomenon of thermal electron emission from molecular systems and the properties of hydrogenic, diffuse, excited electronic states, known as superatom molecular orbitals, which are responsible for relatively simple, well-resolved structure in fs laser photoelectron spectra of fullerenes. We focus on the application of velocity map imaging combined with fs laser photoionisation to study angular-resolved photoelectron emission.