Smalley, Robert

Harry Kroto, Richard Smalley, Robert Curl, and their colleagues discover a different form of carbon, Cgg, also known as buckminsterfullerene or buckyball. ... 

In 1996 Richard Smalley, Robert Curl, and Harold Kroto shared the Nobel Prize for their discovery of the buckminsterfullerene. It s a spherical molecule resembling a soccer ball, and it s composed of 60 carbon atoms. (It s often referred to as Cgp for this reason.) The discovery led toward the science of nanotechnology. Today, Robert Curl can be found cycling to work on his bicycle. It s a sight to behold because here s a man awarded a Nobel Prize for discovering a carbon molecule, yet he keeps his carbon footprint at an absolute minimum. 

We have lessons to learn from the serendipitous and entirely unanticipated discovery of Cgo. This advance, which opened up a whole new field of chemistry, was the unexpected result of studies in fundamental science. Yet new types of polymers, materials that conduct electricity or store energy from sunlight, fascinating structures with metals or other atoms (even helium) trapped inside carbon clusters, new catalysts, new probes for electron microscopy, and even pharmaceuticals—all of these and other commercial possibilities not yet imagined—are emerging from this exciting discovery. The Cgg story illustrates once more why it is so important, in a technological world, to support research in the fundamental sciences. Where the research will lead cannot be predicted with certainty, but experience shows that the eventual practical benefits that follow, even from only a small fraction of fundamental discoveries, compensate many times over for the initial investment. (Richard E. Smalley, Robert F. Curl, and Harold Kroto shared the 1 996 Nobel Prize in chemistry for their discovery of fullerenes.)... 

In September 1985 British chemist Harold Kroto (Figure 4 65) of the University of Sussex collaborated with Americans Richard E. Smalley, Robert F. Curl, James R. Heath and Sean C. O Brien at Rice University in Houston, Texas in some experiments on graphite. Kroto had an interest in molecules found in interstellar space and had wanted to show that molecules containing long chains of carbon atoms could be formed under the conditions believed to be typical of the outer atmospheres of stars known as red giants. Smalley had developed a cluster beam apparatus which could vaporize small samples of solid graphite into carbon atoms which could be rapidly cooled and analysed. 

Without question, our modem nanotechnology revolution was catalyzed by the mid-1980s discovery of carbon nanoclusters known as fullerenes e.g., Cgo, C70, Cg4, The 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Richard Smalley, Robert Curl, and Sir Harold Kroto for this discovery, which focused the worldwide spotlight on unique nanoscale materials and their possible applications. To date, the... 

Nanoimprint lithography is invented by Stephen Chou at Stanford Digital Versatile Disk or Digital Video Disk (DVD) is invented The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded to Richard Smalley, Robert Curl, and Harry Kroto for their 1985 discovery of the third form of carbon, known as buckminsterfullerene ( bucky balls ) ... 

Robert Curl, Richard Smalley, and Harold Kroto were awarded the Nobel prize in chemistry in 1996 for the discovery of the soccer-ball-shaped molecule C60. This fundamental molecule was the first of a new series of molecular allotropes of carbon. The enthalpy of combustion of C60 is —25 937 kj-mol, and its enthalpy of sublimation is +233 kj-mol There are 90 bonds in C60, of which 60 are single bonds and 30 are double bonds. Like benzene, C60 has... 

In 1985, Harry Kroto, then a professor at the University of Sussex, in England, came to Rice University in Houston, Texas, to work with Richard Smalley and Robert Curl on a project involving the chemistry of carbon-containing molecules. The researchers used a mass spectrom-... 

This polymorph of carbon was only discovered in 1985 by Sir Harry Kroto at the University of Sussex while looking for carbon chains. It is made by passing an electric arc between two carbon rods in a partial atmosphere of helium. Kroto was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1996, along with two American researchers (Robert F.Curl Jr. and Richard E.Smalley). The molecule has the formula Ceo and has the same shape as a soccer ball—a truncated icosahedron it takes its name from the engineer and philosopher Buckminster Fuller who discovered the architectural principle of the hollow geodesic dome that this molecule resembles (a geodesic dome was built for EXPO 67 in Montreal). The structure is depicted in Figure 6.14. 

CURL, ROBERT F., JR. < 1933—). An American whn won the Nobel prize for chemistry along with Sir Harold W. Kroto and Richard E. Smalley in 1996. the 100" anniversary uf Alfred Nobel s death. The trio won for the discovery of the CNi compound called buckminsierfullerene. He graduated from Rice University and received a Ph.D. from the Universily of California. Berkeley in 1957. 

See also Buckminsterfullerene I Buck ballsi, Curl, Robert F Jr. 11933-1 and Smalley, Richard E. (1943—). 

Robert F. Curl and Richard E. Smalley, "Fullerenes," Scientific American, October 1991, 54-63. 

In 1985 a new allotrope of carbon was obtained by Richard Smalley and Robert Curl of Rice University, Texas. It was formed by the action of a laser beam on a sample of graphite. 

This work was supported by the Robert A. Welch Foundation. I thank Richard Smalley, Thomas Schmalz and Michael Bowers for stimulating discussions which helped shape this work. 

Harold Kroto, Richard Smalley, and Robert Curl discovered the buckyball C6o in the 1980s. 

One of the most elegant classes of molecules is that of the fullerenes, which are carbon compounds in the form of hollow spheres, constructed of twelve five-sided faces and different numbers of six-sided faces. The smallest fullerene has thirty-two carbon atoms the larger ones have several hundred carbon atoms. The first fullerene was discovered in 1985, by two Americans, Richard Smalley (1943-) and Robert Curl (1933-), and an English chemist, Harry Kroto (1939-). The fullerene with sixty carbon atoms, C60, has a structure similar to the geodesic dome invented by the architect Buckminster Fuller. In a whimsical tribute, the whole class of substances was named after the American architect, and his whole name was used for C60, buckminsterfullerene, or, as it is cheerfully known, the buckyball. Fullerenes are stable and can trap other atoms or small molecules inside their spheres. We have scarcely begun to discover their potential uses. 

Figure 1-7. The principal discoverers of buckminsterfullerene From left to right, Robert F. Curl, 1998 Harold W. Kroto, 1994 and Richard E. Smalley, 2004 (photographs by the authors).

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