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The molecule was named for Richard Buckminster Fuller, a noted architect who created the geodesic dome. Since buckminsterfullerenes have a similar shape to that sort of dome, the name was thought appropriate.

Fullerenes are similar in structure to graphite, which is composed of a sheet of linked hexagonal rings, but they contain pentagonal (or sometimes heptagonal) rings that prevent the sheet from being planar. Cylindrical fullerenes are often called nanotubes. The smallest fullerene in which no two pentagons share an edge (which is destabilizing — see pentalene) is C₆₀ (buckminsterfullerene), and as such it is also the most common.

The structure of C₆₀ is that of a truncated icosahedron, which resembles a round soccerball of the type made of hexagons and pentagons, with a carbon atom at the corners of each hexagon and a bond along each edge. A polymerized single-walled nanotubule ( P-SWNT) is a substance composed of polymerized fullerenes in which carbon atoms from one buckytube bond with carbons in other buckytubes.

Until the late twentieth century, graphite and diamond were the only known allotropes of carbon. Then, in molecular beam experiments, discrete peaks were observed corresponding to molecules with the exact mass of 60, 70, or greater numbers of carbon atoms. Harold KrotoSir Harold Walter Kroto KBE FRS (born October 7, 1939) is an English chemist. Early Life He was born Harold Krotoschiner in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, England with his unusual name being of Silesian origin. His father's family came from Bojanowo, Poland, an, from the University of SussexThe University of Sussex is an English campus university located near the East Sussex village of Falmer, near Brighton and Hove and on the edge of the South Downs. It is the only university in England which is entirely located in an Area of Outstanding Na, James Heath , Sean O'Brien , Robert CurlRobert Floyd Curl, Jr. born August 23, 1933) is Professor of Chemistry at Rice University, awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996 for discovery of fullerene (with Richard Smalley, also Professor of Chemistry at Rice, and Harold Kroto, Professor at the U and Richard SmalleyRichard Errett Smalley (born June 6, 1943) is a professor of chemistry at Rice University. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996 for discovery of fullerene (with Robert Curl, also a professor of chemistry at Rice, and Harold Kroto, a profess, from Rice UniversityRice University was founded by William Marsh Rice in 1892 and was originally named "The William Marsh Rice Institute for the Advancement of Letters, Science, and Art. It opened in 1912 in the Museum District of Houston, Texas. Rice boasts a 3 billion doll, discovered C₆₀ and the fullerenes. Kroto, Curl, and Smalley were awarded the 19961996 was a leap year starting on Monday (see link for calendar), and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty''. Events January January 5 Hamas operative Yahya Ayyash is killed by an Israeli-planted booby-trapped cell phone Jan Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their roles in the discovery of this class of compounds. C₆₀ and other fullerenes were later noticed occurring outside of a laboratory environment (e.g. in normal candle soot). By 1991 it was relatively easy to produce grams of fullerene powder using the techniques of Donald Huffman and Wolfgang Krätschmer . As of the early twenty-first century, the chemical and physical properties of fullerenes are still under heavy study, in both pure and applied research labs. In April 2003, fullerenes were under study for potential medicinal use — binding specific antibiotics to the structure to target resistant bacteria and even target certain cancer cells such as melanoma. In October 2004, researchers at the University of Manchester and Institute of Microelectronics Technology and High Purity Materials [1] at Chernogolovka discovered the first two-dimensional fullerene, called graphene.

Fullerenes are not very reactive due to the stability of the graphite-like bonds, and are also fairly insoluble in many solvents. Researchers have been able to increase the reactivity by attaching active groups to the surfaces of fullerenes.

Other atoms can be trapped inside fullerenes, and indeed recent evidence for a meteor impact at the end of the Permian period was found by analysing noble gases so preserved.

A common method used to produce fullerenes is to send a large current between two nearby graphite electrodes in an inert atmosphere. The resulting carbon plasma arc between the electrodes cools into sooty residue from which many fullerenes can be isolated.