Buckyballs

C₃₆

Research is being conducted at the Department of Physics at the University of California - Berkeley by Alex Zettl and co-workers on the synthesis of Buckyballs. They have synthesized C₃₆ using an arc discharge. This new member of the fullerenes shows promise as a high temperature superconductor. To see a drawing of C₃₆ at the UC - Berkeley Physics web page, choose "The New Fullerene C₃₆".

Nanotubes:

Carbon Nanotube Synthesis and Purification
Boron-Nitride and other Novel Nanotubes
TEM and SEM Imaging of Nanotubes
TEM in-situ Nanotube Manipulation: Nanobearing and Nanosprings
Field Emission from Carbon Nanotubes

C₆₀

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 1996 was awarded to Robert F. Curl, Jr., Richard E. Smalley, and Harold W. Kroto for their collaborative discovery of buckminsterfullene.

Other Fullerene Sites:

The University of Sussex Fullerene Page
The University of Stony Brook Buckyball Homepage
Fullerene Gallery - Includes Buckyball cartesian coordinates.
Geometry of Fullerenes by Slavik Jablan
Alkali-doped Fullerenes
It Slices! It Dices! Nanotube Struts its Stuff

Ferrofluids

In recent years, researchers have prepared ferrofluids , which have the fluid properties of a liquid but respond to magnetic fields. The ferrofluids actually contain tiny particles (~10 nm diameter) of a magnetic solid suspended in a liquid medium. Ferrofluids were originally discovered in the 1960s at the NASA Research Center, where scientists were investigating different possible methods of controlling liquids in space. Today there are many uses for these exciting materials. The original ferrofluids were oil-based. Described in this link is a water-based ferrofluids that students can easily make in the laboratory.