ABSTRACT
It has long been known that solid carbon exists in diamond and graphite crystalline structures or with its atoms in a disordered structure (amorphous carbon). ese allotropes have widely varying physical and chemical properties (and also vary widely in cost). Similarly, gas-phase carbon was well known to exist in diverse molecular forms: isolated C atoms, C2 molecules, and various ill-de ned Cn with somewhat larger values of n. is picture changed qualitatively in 1985 when Kroto et al. [1] reported a new class of carbon molecules, which they called fullerenes, for which they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996.
