Abstract
Gas-evaporation synthesis of metalofullerene:La@C82 was conducted by a direct current arc evaporation of C/La2O3 composite electrode in a rotating chamber in which the thermal convection of helium buffer gas was significantly reduced. The La@C82 content in the soot under the gas pressure of 0.2-0.3 atm was enhanced by the reduction of the thermal convection. However, on the yield of C60 synthesized as a by-product of La@C82, the thermal convection had no significant effect at high gas pressure condition, where prominent effect of the thermal convection was observed on the yield of C60 synthesized from a pure carbon vapor. This result suggested that the lanthanum and oxygen atoms in the carbon vapor affected significantly the formation process of C60 as well as La@C82, resulting in a change of the macroscopic effect of thermal convection.
