eV, much wider than in Na. The IP is 7.6 eV. The deeper binding and broader span of energies is typical of carbon, and more generally of organic systems with a covalent binding. Due to the high symmetry close to sphericity, the optical response exhibits the same behavior in all spatial directions. It has, however, a more complex structure than in ${{\rm
    Na}_{41}}^+$. One can identify two prominent features, a strong resonance peak just below the IP and a much broadened peak centered around 20 eV. The latter part of the optical response lies well above the IP, whence its highly fragmented structure. It is considered to represent the Mie surface plasmon in C$_{60}$. The energies are higher and thus the associated time scales much smaller than in Na, typically well sub-fs. Ionic vibration energies typically lie in the 40-200 meV range with associated time scales of order 20-100 fs.

The case of the small carbon chain C$_5$ (lower left block) is complementing C$_{60}$ in the sense that it has the same binding type, but a different geometry and thus different optical response. The s.p. energies span of the 20 valence electrons is of order 14 eV, and the IP 