New Synthesis of Solid Carbon

A team of physicists from Germany and Arizona have for the first time synthesized significant quantities of a new form of pure, solid carbon. Carbon has previously been known to exist in two forms: diamond and graphite.

In the new form, 60 carbon atoms are joined together in a 20-sided sphere that has the exact shape of a soccer ball. When the molecules were first detected indirectly five years ago, researchers named the compound buckminsterfullerene in honor of the late R. Buckminster Fuller, creator of the geodesic dome.

They speculate that the new form might have unusual lubricating powers.

Physicist Donald R. Huffman of the University of Arizona and his colleagues reported last week in Nature that they had been able to make milligram-sized quantities of crystalline buckminsterfullerene, giving them enough to study its properties for the first time.

Researchers first tried to synthesize the compound because they thought it might account for unusual spectra observed around certain stars and in the regions between stars. But Huffman said that the spectrum of the new compound did not match that of the stars, leaving astronomers to look for another explanation.