Carbon nanotube and fullerene sensors

Abstract

The first fullerene was discovered in 1985 by Sir Harold W. Kroto from the University of Sussex and Richard E. Smalley and Robert F. Curl Jr. from Rice University [1] inadvertently when they were studying the nucleation of carbon in the atmosphere of a cool carbon-rich red giant star. Fullerenes refer to a family of carbon allotropes. Each carbon molecule is composed of at least 60 carbon atoms such as C60. When the atoms are arranged in the form of hollow sphere, it is referred to as buckyballs. Fullerenes that take the form of a cylinder are referred to as carbon nanotubes (CNTs). By 1990, it was relatively easy to synthesize macroscopic quantities of C60. Donald Huffman of University of Arizona and Wolfgang Kratschmer of Max Planck Institute developed a technique by which C60 was produced by evaporating graphite electrodes via resistive heating in an atmosphere of 100 Torr helium [2]. © 2009 Springer-Verlag US.