Solid C60

Abstract

On 18 May 1990 my longtime friend and colleague Wolfgang Krätschmer called from the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg with a startling suggestion. The elusive molecule C 60 , which we had slowly come to realize was abundantly present in the carbonaceous smoke we had been making since 1983, was readily soluble in benzene, he told me. This would provide a simple technique for separating the molecule from the ordinary graphite that made up over 90% of the soot we had been producing. The discovery of a method for producing the soccer‐ball‐shaped buckminsterfullerene molecule in abundance led also to the discovery of a totally new form of crystalline carbon.