Fullerene Research at SRI

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Fullerene Research at SRI

• What are fullerenes? Their importance
• The range of fullerene materials
• SRI projects on fullerenes
• Applications

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Fullerenes

• A newly discovered form of carbon
• Structure consists of cages made of carbon atoms
• Cages formed by including pentagons in a lattice
  of hexagons

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C60 An unusual form of carbon

• Dissolves in common solvents like benzene,
  toluene, hexane
• Readily vaporizes in vacuum around 400C
• Low thermal conductivity
• Pure C60 is an electrical insulator
• C60 doped with alkali metals shows a range of
  electrical conductivity
• Insulator (K6 C60) to superconductor (K3 C60) lt
  30 K!

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Paradigm
Applications
Properties
Structure
Unusual structure
Unusual properties
New applications
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Fullerene Projects at SRI
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Highlights of SRI Program
Unique Solubility Behavior
Fullerene Polymers
Discovered Carbon Nanoencapsulates
Patterned Diamond?
K-H Report Arc Process for Fullerenes
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Catalytic Properties
Patterned SiC
Methane Activation
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Potential Applications

• High strength C-C composites with nanotubes
• Catalysts for hydrocarbon conversions
• Novel polymers and elastomers
• Nanotubes for AFM and STM probes
• Patterned carbide materials for semiconductor and
  opto-electronic applications
• Pharmaceuticals

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The Team
Asutosh Nigam Salah Awadalla Sanjiv Mehrotra
Doris Tse Yuhua Du Rod Ruoff Young Bae Bryan
Chan Al Hirschon Chris Becker Don Lorents Liqiang
Jiang Bruce Pound Sharon Wing Hui-Jung Wu T.
Shekharam Anumita Paul Lorenza Moro Don
McMillen Donald Keegan Robert LaDuca
Subhash Narang Apparao Satyam Jacques
Giovanola Ripudaman Malhotra
Shekhar Subramoney, DuPont