Electronic structure and polarizabilities of icosahedral fullerenes:: A Pariser-Parr-Pople approach

A Pariser-Parr-Pople approach, complemented with physical consistency criteria based on the expected molecular response to a weak electric field, has been used to predict the electronic level structure and polarizabilities of five icosahedral fullerenes in the range C-60-C-720. The behavior of the polarizability alpha as a function of the fullerene size is given by the expression alpha =0.75R(e)(3), where R-e is an effective molecular radius. It is argued that fullerenes would present the maximum polarizability values allowed for carbon shells, as if they were made of graphene. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.