Fullerene or buckminsterfullerene is a series of hollow carbon molecules that form either a closed cage or a cylinder. Fullerenes in the form of a closed cage are sometimes called buckyballs whereas cylindrical fullerenes are called carbon nanotubes.
The first fullerene was discovered in 1985 by the British chemist Sir Harold W. Kroto, Richard E. Smalley and Robert F. Curl, Jr., of the United States. The trios were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1996 for their discovery.
It is in turn named after the American architect R. Buckminster Fuller, whose geodesic dome is constructed on the same structural principles. Sumio Lijima of Japan identified the elongated cousins of buckyballs called carbon nanotubes in 1991.
Though fullerenes had been predicted for some time, they were detected in nature and outer space only after their accidental synthesis in 1985. Until then, graphite, diamond, and amorphous carbon such as soot and charcoal were the only allotropes of carbon. The discovery of fullerenes has led to a new understanding of sheet materials and created new vistas in nano-science and nanotechnology.
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