Since brochosomes were first discovered coating leafhoppers’ exoskeleton, their unique buckyball shape has puzzled scientists. Why expend precious energy to make such trypophobia-inducing ...

Robert Curl, Nobel-winning chemist in ‘buckyball’ discovery, dies at 88 His work helped open new frontiers in physical chemistry and nanotechnology July 6, 2022 More than 2 years ago ...

Scientist Richard Smalley helped discover a new form of carbon, known as "buckyballs," for which he shared a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996. His research helped launch the field of nanotechnology.

Buckyballs’ large size and intricate structure have long captured scientists’ interest, even if practical applications for the 60-carbon molecules remain elusive.

Buckyballs are the rule-breakers of chemistry. These strange molecules are made up of 60 carbon atoms, fused together in a soccer-ball shape. For years, scientists assumed they could only be made ...

Robert F. Curl Jr., who shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry as one of the discoverers of remarkably simple but completely unexpected carbon molecules known as buckyballs, died on July 3 at a ...

Backed by a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation, researchers led by Princeton’s Marissa Weichman will help identify new buckyball-like molecules, formed in space, which “drive the ...

Richard Curl, Harold Kroto, and Richard Smalley won the 1996 Nobel Prize in chemistry for synthesizing buckyballs in a laboratory.

In 1996, Kroto, Smalley, and Curl were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. All three men have passed away—Robert Curl died on July 3—but the story of buckminsterfullerene has barely begun.

Physics & Chemistry Chemists Used Buckyballs to Squeeze a Noble Gas Into One Dimension An experiment compressed krypton atoms so tightly that they formed a 1-D strand.