Photo-Induced Nanopatterns on the Surface of C60 Single Crystals

Photo-induced surface reconstruction of molecular materials has been demonstrated for the first time using C60 as a model. The authors explain why C60 single crystals are good candidates to show photo-induced surface reconstruction and give experimental details. Reconstruction effects that depend on both the lattice symmetry and light polarization are shown to suggest that the phenomenon arises from a cooperative interaction between the photo-induced collective molecular displacement and the anisotropic lattice structure of the crystals.