Fullerenes

Overall View of Fullerenes Natural Carbons can usually exist in several forms. The most common are Graphite and diamond, but most people don’t know that there is a third type—fullerenes. Many have mistaken these fullerenes for a “new type of carbon.” Fullerenes have been discovered in interstellar dust as well as in geological formations on Earth, but they are very new to us. As with many important scientific discoveries, Fullerenes were discovered by …

…that fullerenes turn out to have strong optical effects. This means that they can change their properties with the aid of irradiation with light. Something like this could be extremely useful in photolithography. Overall fullerenes are found interesting because they are not like any other molecules scientists have worked with so far. Although we've known about carbon as long as we've known about fire, we are still discovering new aspects of this element every decade.