Fullerenes and carbon nanotubes, the best-known nanomaterials, are both composed of carbon. There are many
structural variations of both kinds of material, each of which boasts unique properties and potential for application.
The first fullerene discovered was the buckminsterfullerene, a hollow, spherical molecule of 60 carbon atoms
also known as a buckyball because of its football-like shape. Buckminsterfullerenes were discovered jointly in
1985 by Harold Kroto of Sussex University, and Richard Smalley and Robert Curl of Rice University-an achievement
that won the three men the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1996. Fullerenes are, like diamond, a natural and rational
combination of carbon atoms that display some unique properties.
Carbon nanotubes could be regarded as fullerene-like structures that are tube-shaped rather than spherical. Nanotubes
currently in production have a diameter of several nanometers and a length of about one micron. Like fullerenes,
however, they display a wide range of electronic, chemical and mechanical properties depending on tube structure,
shape of their ends, length, and whether they are single- or multi-wall-properties that can, moreover,
be controlled). Nanotubes are also tremendously robust structures, so strong that, for example, that a nanotube
of 3 mm in thickness is said to be able to suspend a ton weight.
