Rick Smalley Rice University Metal Clusters Fe10 Si6 Al20 etc lens Laser beam Metal target

Plasma in lab Exploding Star Try to reproduce the stellar plasma in the laboratory

Focused Laser beam produces 10000o plasma lens Carbon chains molecules Graphite Target

Jim Heath and Sean O’Brien

Yuan Liu

Laser and graphite disk skimmer hole to mass spectrometer carbon plasma cluster beam Laser Vapourisation Cluster Beam System - Smalley

Mass spectrum of carbon clusters (4-9-85) in which C60 and C70 were first recognised as special

Buckminster Fuller’s Dome at Expo 67

C60: Buckminsterfullerene

lens A BIG surprise Graphite Target

lens C60 clusters Graphite Target

rather like the floor of the Curl’s washroom Graphite consists of sheets of carbon atoms in hexagonal arrays rather like the floor of the Curl’s washroom

Stardome Map of the sky on a truncated icosahedron consisting of pentagons as well as hexagons

Crystals of Buckminsterfullerene obtained by Kraetschmer and co-workers

nmr spectrum of soot extract

The Goode Company, Houston

A fundamental advance was made at Rice University in Texas. The Second Strand A fundamental advance was made at Rice University in Texas. Smalley and co-workers developed a technique which enabled large metal clusters (with tens of atoms) to be studied for the first time

Graphite is known to consist of layers of hexagonally packed carbon atoms

Supersonic cluster beam nozzle Focused laser beam Solenoid valve Helium Rotating metal disk Aggregating clusters 2cm Smalley and co-workers - Rice University 1981