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Fullerene
The fullerenes, discovered in 1985 by researchers at Rice University, are a family of carbon allotropes named after Buckminster Fuller. They are molecules composed entirely of carbon, in the form of a hollow sphere, ellipsoid, or tube. Spherical fullerenes are sometimes called buckyballs, the C60 variant is often compared to a typical white and black soccer football. Cylindrical fullerenes are called buckytubes. Recently discovered is the "buckyegg", by researchers at UC Davis. Fullerenes are similar in structure to graphite, which is composed of a sheet of linked hexagonal rings, but they contain pentagonal (or sometimes heptagonal) rings that prevent the sheet from being planar.
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Matter & Energy News
March 16, 2026
Mar. 16, 2026 Physicists at UC Santa Barbara have uncovered a new way to manipulate unusual magnetic states by exploiting “frustration” inside a crystal’s atomic structure. The team discovered a rare system where two different kinds of ...
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Mar. 10, 2026 Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have created a new aluminum alloy called RidgeAlloy that can turn contaminated car-body scrap into strong structural vehicle parts. Normally, impurities ...
Mar. 9, 2026 Scientists have found a way to significantly boost “blue energy,” which generates electricity from the mixing of saltwater and freshwater. By coating nanopores with lipid molecules that create a friction-reducing water layer, they enabled ions ...
Mar. 8, 2026 Engineers have discovered an unexpected link between two very different realms of physics: the behavior of electrons in graphene and magnetic waves in specially engineered materials. By designing a thin magnetic film with a hexagonal pattern of ...
Mar. 7, 2026 Solid-state batteries could be safer and more energy-dense than today’s lithium-ion technology, but finding materials that allow ions to move quickly through solid electrolytes has been difficult. ...
Mar. 7, 2026 A team of physicists has experimentally confirmed a long-predicted sequence of exotic magnetic phases in an atomically thin material. When cooled, the material forms tiny magnetic vortices before transitioning into a second ordered magnetic ...
Mar. 4, 2026 A new ultrathin photodetector from Duke University can sense light across the entire electromagnetic spectrum and generate a signal in just 125 picoseconds, making it the fastest pyroelectric detector ever built. The breakthrough could power ...
Mar. 4, 2026 Scientists at the University of Tokyo have captured something never seen before: a frame-by-frame view of how electron spins flip inside an antiferromagnet, a material once thought to be magnetically “invisible.” By firing ultrafast electrical ...
Mar. 3, 2026 Researchers at the University of Basel and the ETH in Zurich have succeeded in changing the polarity of a special ferromagnet using a laser beam. In the future, this method could be used to create adaptable electronic circuits with ...
Mar. 3, 2026 Fusion energy may be one of the most promising clean power sources of the future—but only if scientists can precisely measure the extreme, fast-moving plasmas that make it possible. A new U.S. Department of Energy–sponsored report urges major ...
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Mar. 14, 2026 Cambridge scientists have discovered a light-powered chemical reaction that lets researchers modify complex drug molecules at the final stages of ...
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Mar. 9, 2026 Physicists have long struggled to unite quantum mechanics—the theory governing tiny particles—with Einstein’s theory of gravity, which explains the behavior of stars, planets, and the structure ...
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