Fullerene

Fullerenes are cage-like, extremely stable formations of carbon. The most well known member of this molecule family is the C₆₀ molecule, which can be seen on the figure below this text. The first fullerene to be discovered, and the family's namesake, was buckminsterfullerene C₆₀, made in 1985 by Robert Curl, Harold Kroto and Richard Smalley [1]. The name was an homage to Richard Buckminster Fuller, whose geodesic domes it resembles. The existence of C₆₀ was predicted by Eiji Osawa [2] of Toyohashi University of Technology in a Japanese magazine in 1970. He noticed that the structure of a corannulene molecule was a subset of a soccer-ball shape, and he made the hypothesis that a full ball shape could also exist. His idea was reported in Japanese magazines, but did not reach Europe or America. Click on the figure below to launch the javascript-based JSmol applet [3] and have a close look at the C₆₀ molecule. The 60 carbon atoms form 12 non-neighbouring pentagons. There are two different bond lengths with a slightly shorter bond length at the hexagon-hexagon edges, and bit longer at the pentagons edges. The buckyball fullerene is a truncated (T=3) icosahedron, therefore has full icosahedral symmetry.

Our results on fullerenes can be organized into three groups of interest:

• Dimers & oligomers of fullerenes
• Fullerene-cubane co-crystals
• Peapods & DWCNTs

[1] Kroto, H.W, Heath, J.R. O'Brien, S.C., Curl, R.R és Smalley, R.E.: Nature 318, 162 (1985).

[2] Osawa, E.: Kagaku 25, 854 (1970).

[3] jmol.sourceforge.net