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The nano-revolution spawned by carbon

In 1985, scientists reported the discovery of the cage-like carbon molecule C60. The finding paved the way for materials such as graphene and carbon nanotubes, and was a landmark in the emergence of nanotechnology.
  1. Pulickel M. Ajayan

    1. Pulickel M. Ajayan is in the Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77006, USA.

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The history of the carbon molecule C60 highlights the fact that discoveries do not happen in a predefined sequence. C60, carbon nanotubes and graphene (single layers of graphite) are essentially members of the same family: all are nanoscale structures that consist of carbon atoms arranged in a periodic crystal lattice. Graphite has been known for a few hundred years, and individual layers of the material could be separated easily. However, the identification of C60 by Kroto et al.1 did not occur until 1985. This, in turn, led to the discovery of graphene nearly two decades later2. Both of these breakthroughs led to Nobel prizes, in chemistry for C60 (1996) and in physics for graphene (2010).

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Nature 575, 49-50 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02838-4

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