Discovery of Bucky

1
Discovery of Bucky
http//sbchem.sunysb.edu/msl/fullerene.html
Or at least how I remember it!!
2
How it all started

• Rick Smalley develops supersonic jet techniques
  (70s 80s)
• Bob Curl (Rice) and Harry Kroto (Sussex) talk at
  a Conference in Austin, TX in 1984
• Sean OBrien and Jim Heath begin grad school at
  Rice Fall 1984

Old Chemistry Building at Rice
3
Laser Vaporization Cluster Source
Sean OBrien designed this
http//smalley.rice.edu/images/nozzle.jpg
4
Cluster Source
http//smalley.rice.edu/images/res_app2.jpg
5
First Published work at Exxon on Carbon Clusters
http//smalley.rice.edu/images/cox_mass_spec.jpg
6
Why is C60 ion so large?

From Designing the Molecular World by Phillip
Ball, Princeton, 1994
7
Buckminsterfullerene!!
Sept. 1985
www.kroto.info
8
1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their
discovery of fullerenes
January 6, 1997 CEN
http//www.nobel.se/chemistry/laureates/1996/
9
Jim Heath then
Joe built this!!!
Now
www.kroto.info