Formation and chemistry of the fullerenes

Abstract

Abstract The yield of the truncated icosahedron molecule C60 in the initial carbon clustering laser vaporization supersonic molecular beam mass spectrometer experiments was believed to be quite low. The formation or c60 in this system could be explained in terms of quite chaotic growth of spiraling graphitic sheets which occasionally closed into the buckminsterfullerene structure. Much higher yields of c60 (up to 20% of carbon) have been obtained in arc vaporization and other experiments. The original model of cluster growth proposed must be modified or discarded to account for these high yields. Two reasonable modifications which have been proposed are discussed.