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Abstract Our previous studies (Shields et al 2020 J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 53 125101; Shields et al 2020 Euro. Phys. J. D 74 191) have predicted that the atom-fullerene hybrid photoionization properties for X = Cl, Br and I endohedrally confined in C 60 are different before and after an electron transfers from C 60 to the halogen. It was further found as a rule that the ionization dynamics is insensitive to the C 60 level the electron originates from to produce X − @ C 60 + . In the current study, we report an exception to this rule in F@C 60 . It is found that when the electron vacancy is situated in the C 60 level that participates in the hybridization in F − @ C 60 + , the mixing becomes dramatically large leading to strong modifications in the photoionization of the hybrid levels. This novel effect is fundamentally based on a level-crossing phenomenon driven by the electron transfer in F@C 60 . But when the vacancy is at any other pure level of C 60 , the level-invariance is retained showing weak hybridization. Even though this case of F@C 60 is an exception in the halogen@C 60 series, the phenomenon can be more general and can occur with compounds of other atoms caged in a variety of fullerenes. Possible experimental studies are suggested to benchmark the present results. 

We compare the electron dynamics at monocrystalline Cu(111), Au(100) and Pd(111) precursor substrates with vicinal nanosteps. The unoccupied bands of a surface superlattice are populated via the resonant charge transfer (RCT) between the surface and a H − ion that flies by at grazing angles. A quantum mechanical wave packet propagation approach is used to simulate the motion of the active electron, and time-evolved wave packet densities are used to visualize the dynamics through the superlattice. The survived ion fraction in the reflected beam generally exhibits modulations as a function of the vicinal terrace size and shows peaks at those energies that access the image state subband dispersions. Differences in magnitudes of the ion-survival as a function of the particular substrate selection and the ion-surface interaction time, based on the choice of two ion-trajectories, are examined. A square well model, producing standing waves between the steps on the surface, explains the energies of the maxima in the ion survival probability for all the metals considered. This indicates that the primary process of confinement induced subband formation is robust. The work may motivate measurements and applications of shallow-angle ion-scattering spectroscopy to access electronic substructures in periodically nanostructured surfaces.