The Dawn of the Fullerenes: A Research Adventure

View The Dawn of the Fullerenes: A Research Adventure

Presenter: Robert Curl

Published: January 2015

Age: 18-22 and upwards

Views: 1606 views

Tags: C60:C-60;fullerene;

Type: Lectures

Source/institution: Lindau-Nobel


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When he received the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with Richard E. Smalley (who also worked at Rice) and Sir Harold Kroto (at the time at the University of Sussex, UK), this was a true example of national and international scientific collaboration. In the present lecture, delivered in Lindau two years after the award, Curl gives a detailed, historical account of this collaboration, which led to the discovery of the Nobel Prize-winning, football-shaped C60 molecule, also known as the Buckminster fullerene or buckyball.In the 1980s, Curl and Smalley were studying metal clusters with an apparatus Smalley had developed in his laboratory. Using high-energy lasers, this apparatus could convert metals (or other materials) into a plasma. (Unfortunately no video exists for this lecture, which is in audio only.)