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Low temperature photoluminescence (PL) and photoluminescence excitation (PLE) spectroscopy of high purity ErSc(2)N@C(80) and Er(2)ScN@C(80) fullerenes reveal at least two metastable configurations of the Er(3+) ion within the cage, consistent with previous observations from x-ray diffraction. Using PLE measurements at a number of different emission wavelengths we have characterized the ground state, (4)I(152), and the first excited state, (4)I(132), of the various Er(3+) configurations and their crystal-field splitting. We present detailed energy level diagrams for the ground and excited states of the two dominant configurations of ErSc(2)N@C(80) and Er(2)ScN@C(80).

While the anomalous Hall effect can manifest even without an external magnetic field, time reversal symmetry is nonetheless still broken by the internal magnetization of the sample. Recently, it has been shown that certain materials without an inversion center allow for a nonlinear type of anomalous Hall effect whilst retaining time reversal symmetry. The effect may arise from either Berry curvature or through various asymmetric scattering mechanisms. Here, we report the observation of an extremely large c-axis nonlinear anomalous Hall effect in the non-centrosymmetric Td phase of MoTe2 and WTe2 without intrinsic magnetic order. We find that the effect is dominated by skew-scattering at higher temperatures combined with another scattering process active at low temperatures. Application of higher bias yields an extremely large Hall ratio of E⊥/E|| = 2.47 and corresponding anomalous Hall conductivity of order 8 × 107 S/m.

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Motivated by the possibility of observing photoluminescence and electron paramagnetic resonance from the same species located within a fullerene molecule, we initiated an EPR study of Er3+ in ErSc2N@C80. Two orientations of the ErSc2N rotor within the C80 fullerene are observed in EPR, consistent with earlier studies using photoluminescence excitation (PLE) spectroscopy. For some crystal field orientations, electron spin relaxation is driven by an Orbach process via the first excited electronic state of the 4I(15/2) multiplet. We observe a change in the relative populations of the two ErSc2N configurations upon the application of 532 nm illumination, and are thus able to switch the majority cage symmetry. This photoisomerization, observable by both EPR and PLE, is metastable, lasting many hours at 20 K.