The Fullerenes - Hardcover

Until recently, the element carbon was believed to exhibit only two main allotropic forms, diamond and graphite. Research in the US and Europe has now confirmed the existence of a third previously unknown form - buckminsterfullerene (C 60) and its relatives, the fullerenes (C 24, C 28, C 32,C 70 etc). The story of fullerene chemistry, physics and materials science began in 1985, almost twenty years after the existence of a spherical carbon cluster was first considered. In September 1985 a joint Sussex /Rice Universities team including Kroto, Heath, O'Brien, Curl and Smalley used a powerful mass spectrometric technique to identify the C+ 60 species, and proposed a spherical structure and the name buckminsterfullerene. It was not, however, until Kratschmer and Huffman reported the isolation of crystals of C 60, in 1990 that the closed cage structure of C 60 could be confirmed. The Fullerenes documents the work leading up to 1990 and more recent developments in the field of fullerene research and will serve as a reference tool for all workers in this area.