ABSTRACT
In recent years, the ability of carbon to exist in different allotropic forms has provided, besides C60 and the other fullerenes, many new varieties of nanoscale-sized shapes with fascinating properties, such as the “higher” fullerenes,1,2 endohedral fullerenes,3,4 carbon nanoonions (CNOs),5,6 and single and multiwalled carbon nanotubes,7 among many. A signicant amount of research has been done in the eld of fullerenes after their discovery in 1985 by Smalley et al.8 The fullerenes exhibit interesting properties such as large surface area, high thermal stability, and broad absorption spectra.9 More recently, larger morphological variations of fullerene-like all carbon structures such as the carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have received enormous attention. The remarkable physical, chemical, and electronic properties of CNTs are of great interest.7,10 These properties include high conductivity (which is, in fact, comparable to those of copper and/or silicon and exceed those of any conducting polymer by several orders of magnitude), strong mechanical, thermal, and environmental resistance.11
