C60B buckminsterfullerene, other fullerenes and the icospiral shell

AbstractIt seems remarkable that though carbon has been studied exhaustively for decades a new highly symmetric form, in addition to diamond and graphite, has recently been discovered. The C60B molecule is a cage with t-icosahedral symmetry analogous to that of a football, i.e. 12 pentagonal and 20 hexagonal faces. The molecule, buckminterfullerene, is one of a family highly symmetric fullerence 5/6-face cage species. The spontaneous formation of C60B has led to the discovery of an icosahedral spiral (icospiral) network that explains the structure of carbonaceous particles such as soot. This new topological form solves the spheroidal wrapping problem using planar materials. Curiously giant fullerence structures can be generated as highly symmetric 3D cages by the introduction of only 12 pentagonal defects into a 2D hexagonal sheet network of any size