Buckminsterfullerene

Literature References: Named after R. Buckminster Fuller, the American engineer, whose geodesic domes possess the same symmetry as the C60 truncated icosohedron typified by a soccerball. The most abundant of a class of carbon molecules characterized by a hollow cage structure and known as the fullerenes. One of the allotropic forms of carbon, q.v., and the only molecular form, these molecules, described by C20+2m, form stable closed nets composed of 12 pentagons and 'm' hexagons. Prepn: H. W. Kroto et al., Nature 318, 162 (1985); in macroscopic quantities: W. Krätschmer et al., ibid. 347, 354 (1990). Rational synthesis: L. T. Scott et al., Science 295, 1500 (2002). Identification in shungite, a carbonaceous rock: P. R. Buseck et al., Science 257, 215 (1992). Review of early work: R. F. Curl, R. E. Smalley, Sci. Am. 265, 54-63 (1991). Review of synthesis, properties, chemistry including metal-doping: Acc. Chem. Res. 25, 98-175 (1992); Fullerenes, G. S. Hammond, V. J. Kuck, Eds. ACS Symp. Ser. 481, 1-195 (1992). Review of solids chemistry: A. Penicaud, Fullerene Sci. Tech. 6, 731-741 (1998). Book: The Chemical Physics of Fullerenes 10 (and 5) Years Later, W. Andreoni, Ed. (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1996) 498 pp.