Buckyballs, also called buckyballs or fullerenes, are a class of carbon allotropes that take the form of a hollow sphere. They were first discovered in 1985 by Harold Kroto, Richard Smalley, and Robert Curl, who were awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery. The name “buckyball” is derived from Buckminster Fuller, whose geodesic dome design resembles the structure of these molecules.
Buckminsterfullerene (C60) is the best-known member of this class, but other fullerenes with different numbers of carbon atoms have also been prepared. Fullerenes have attracted much attention because they are unusually stable compared to other forms of carbon and have unique properties that make them potential candidates for use in a variety of applications ranging from nanotechnology to medicine.
The discovery of fullerenes began with the observation of soot under high magnification. Soot is an amorphous form of carbon that is produced when organic matter burns incompletely. When viewed under an electron microscope, soot particles appeared as hollow spheres with diameters ranging from 1 to 10 nanometers (nm). These spheres were dubbed “buckyballs” after Buckminster Fuller because their shape resembled his geodesic domes.
In 1987, Kratschmer and Huffman demonstrated that laser vaporization of graphite in an argon atmosphere could produce larger quantities of buckyballs. This method became the standard way to produce fullerenes until it was replaced by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) in 1993. CVD involves heating a substrate material such as quartz in the presence of a gas containing carbon atoms (such as methane or acetylene). The resulting reaction produces thin films composed entirely of fullerenes on the surface of the substrate material.