A molecule of carbon expected to have use in a variety of applications, especially in the medical field. Also known as "Fullerines" because the 60 atoms that make up their spherical molecule resemble Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes, they are lighter than plastic and stronger than steel. They can also conduct heat and electricity. Buckyballs were identified in 1985 by three scientists who later received a Nobel prize for the discovery. Buckyballs are used as a building block for many experimental materials. See nanotube and nanotechnology.
 | Reproduced with permission from Computer Desktop Encyclopedia. Copyright (c) 1981-2009 The Computer Language Company Inc. All rights reserved. |
Additional Resources
- Year of the nanotube
- For nearly 25 years now, ever since the discovery of the Carbon-60 "Buckyball" at Rice University, scientists have been trying to find uses for what is now called nanotechnology. Those uses are now coming thick and fast. In November I wrote how carbon nanotubes could be...
- Blog posts 2008-01-29
- Boron buckyballs are coming
- Im sure you know that buckyballs are molecules composed entirely of carbon and got their name for famed architect Buckminster Fuller because of their shapes. Now, Rice University scientists have designed -- on computers -- a buckyball made of 80 boron atoms. The shape of this very stable molecule is...
- Blog posts 2007-04-24
- A buckyegg breaks pentagon rules
- Chemists from Virginia and California have cooked a soup of fullerenes which produced an improbable buckyegg. The egg-shaped structure of their buckyballs was a complete surprise for the researchers. In fact, they wanted to trap some atoms of terbium in a buckyball "to make compounds that could be both medically...
- Blog posts 2006-09-29
- IBM's future molecular switch
- In another attempt to extend the validity of Moore's Law, IBM researchers are turning to molecules. According to Red Herring in IBM Sees a Dip in Chip Size, they have demonstrated how a single molecule can be switched between two distinct 'on' and 'off' states. They've used specially designed organic...
- Blog posts 2006-08-05
- Lithium buckyballs to store hydrogen?
- Hydrogen fuel, which is an ideal energy carrier and environmentally friendly because it releases only water in the air, might one day power our cars and reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. But first we need to find ways to produce it -- and to store it. And now, researchers...
- Blog posts 2006-07-26
- Bang! Bang! Let's kick these qubits!
- Is this a sports story or a scientific step closer towards quantum supercomputers? You'll be the judge. But researchers from Oxford University have found a way to maintain a quantum bit qubit in a stable state by locking it up inside a buckyball. Then they kicked it repeatedly "with a...
- Blog posts 2006-01-07
- Open source science
- Most science happens in silos. The chemists own the chemistry experiments, the biologists the biology experiments. It's like a collection of little, proprietary software enterprises, which don't share.In open source science the entire campus can share in the discovery process. It doesn't matter what your discipline is, you can find...
- Blog posts 2005-10-31
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