Buckminsterfullerene cations: new dimensions in gas-phase ion chemistry.

The author provides a brief overview, and shares the extraordinary excitement, of the years of unprecedented discoveries in ion chemistry that followed the first production of fullerene powder in 1990. Various charge states of the buckminsterfullerene C60n+ cation became available by conventional electron-impact ionization of the vapor of this powder and so for mass-spectrometric measurements of ion reactivity. The emphasis here will be on fullerene-ion research performed in the author's own laboratory at York University using electron ionization flow-tube mass spectrometry techniques. Copyright 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.