Nanotech Surprise: Shooting Lasers at Buckyballs Makes Them Bigger

SchrodingerZ writes "Since 1985, scientists have been trying to determine how Buckyballs (scientifically named Buckminsterfullerene) are created. They are molecules with the formula C60 (a fullerene) that forms a hexagonal sphere of interlocking carbon atoms. 'But how these often highly symmetric, beautiful molecules with extremely fascinating properties form in the first place has been a mystery.' For over three decades the creation of these molecules have baffled the scientific community. Recently researchers at Florida State University, in cooperation with MagLab, have looked deeper into the creation process and determined their origin. It was already known the the process for buckyball creation was under highly energetic conditions over an instant, 'We started with a paste of pre-existing fullerene molecules mixed with carbon and helium, shot it with a laser, and instead of destroying the fullerenes we were surprised to find they'd actually grown.' The fullerenes were able to absorb and incorporate carbon from the surrounding gas. This study will help to illuminate the path towards carbon nanotechnology and extraterrestrial environmental studies, due to buckyball's abundance in extrasolar clouds."

Comments

Redundant

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know why I bother reading these links anymore. I'm waiting for someone to say how these devices will replace PCs and I have yet to see it. Perhaps some jobs can be easily transitioned over to portable devices and touch screens but dedicate computers have a place into the foreseeable future. Voice recognition technology is still barely better than a joke. Touch is convenient but is a significant limitation on detailed work and speed. The internet revolutionized many jobs and many people spend a good portion of their day using the Internet as an encyclopedia or trouble shooting guide. How many of you (using a PC) have dozens of tabs open right now? My browser has 26 tabs. I have email on another monitor, music playing in the back ground and a large file copy running. I'm not in the cloud. Until the Internet is as stable at my HDD I won't trust my data to a remote storage solution. PCs are not dead and they are not dying anytime soon.