As recently as 1984, carbon was thought to exist in only two solid forms. There was graphite, in which the carbon atoms arranged themselves as layered sheets of hexagonally bonded atoms, and there was diamond, in which the carbon atoms formed...

As recently as 1984, carbon was thought to exist in only two solid forms (allotropes). There was graphite, in which the carbon atoms arranged themselves as layered sheets of hexagonally bonded atoms, and there was diamond, in which the carbon atoms...

Buckminsterfullerene (also known as buckyballs) are one of a class of hollow, aromatic carbon compounds constructed of carbon atoms arranged in 12 pentagonal and variable numbers of hexagonal faces. The non-metallic element carbon, atomic number 6, is...

In 1985 Harold Kroto (1939- ), Robert Curl (1933- ), and Richard Smalley (1943- ) discovered a novel form of pure carbon, called fullerenes, and opened up a new field of chemistry and materials science. Buckminsterfullerene, named after American...

Fullerenes Carbon nanotubes Fullerene chemistry Applications Popular culture Timeline Carbon...

No one can say that speculation about practical applications for those hollow all-carbon molecules called fullerenes is all talk and no action. Several research groups have now demonstrated that they can use fullerenes as lubricants and can coax these molecules to form...

Chemists have quite successfully cooked up large quantities of fullerenes for three years now, but no one yet knows how these structures manage to emerge out of the hot carbon chaos. Why the commonly used arc-reactor-synthesis method works at all still mystifies researchers....