Twenty-five years ago this month, researchers first identified buckminsterfullerenes — chemical structures shaped like tiny carbon soccer balls. The scientists had discovered an new form of carbon, separate from graphite or diamond. The work went on to earn Robert Curl, Richard Smalley, and Sir Harold Kroto the Nobel Prize. We’ll talk with Kroto about the discovery and what’s been learned about fullerenes since then.
Sir Harold Walter Kroto, FRS, known as Harry Kroto, was an English chemist. He shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley for their discovery of fullerenes.