Electronic states and molecular symmetry of the higher fullerene C80

Core and valence level photoemission and C 1s core excitation spectra are presented from solid C80. Ten valence band features are identified in the binding energy range 0–15 eV, whose relative intensity depends strongly on the incident photon energy. C 1s core level photoemission comprised fine structure which was interpreted as reflecting one electron and collective electron excitations of the ionised C80 system. The number of levels arising from C 1s to unoccupied π∗ transitions observed in core excitation spectra and the nature of the filling of these levels upon Rb intercalation suggest that our C80 samples contain predominantly molecules which possess D2 symmetry.