ABSTRACT
The unequivocal identi†cation and description of the C60 molecule in 1985 (Kroto et al. 1985) predate the discoveries of other nanostructural building blocks such as nanotubes, nanowires, and graphene. Thus, it can said that C60 ushered in the era when nanotechnology became a practical proposition. However, in spite of the early predictions, and unlike the subsequently discovered nanotubes, fullerenes and fullerites have not made much practical impact. Nevertheless, they have been interesting objects from the point of view of fundamental science. The †rst ten years of work in the †eld have been reviewed in the literature (e.g., Kumar, Martin, and Tosatti 1993; Eletskii and Smimov 1995).
