Bent Graphitic Sheets

In conclusion the following effects associated with bending of sp -carbon networks (graphitic sheets) including the bent structures of buckytubes and fullerenes are predicted ... 

A close-packed monolayer of long, planar molecules must necessarily contain at least "islands" of local order in which molecules are packed plane-to-plane. One notices that crystals of these dyes tend to pack in sheets, within which the molecules have their long axes parallel to one another and parallel to the plane of the sheet. The molecular short axes are nearly perpendicular to the plane of the sheet, and the intermolecular contacts within the sheet tend to occur at the graphitic distance, except for molecules which are bent or twisted out of planarity. Twisted molecules ("overcrowded" in Brooker s classification) generally make poor sensitizers, probably because they have a fast route of deexcitation directly from the excited singlet state to the ground state opened by the existence of the twisted, stressed structure. 

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