Fullerene Quantum Gyroscope

We report the observation of quantized rotational states of a diatomic C2 unit in solid endohedral fullerene C(2)Sc(2)@C(84). The rotational transitions induce a periodic line pattern in the low energy Raman spectrum. The rotational constant B and the C-C distance were found to be 1.73 cm(-1) and 0.127 nm, respectively. Density functional calculations revealed an intrinsic rotational barrier of the order of only a few meV for the C2 unit. The Schrödinger equation involving the potential barrier was solved and the Raman tensor matrix elements were calculated, yielding good quantitative agreement with the experiment. To our best knowledge this is the first intrinsic rotational spectrum of a diatomic plane molecular rotor.