Richard Smalley

Richard Smalley (1943–2005) was an American chemist who shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering fullerenes, a family of carbon molecules.

Harry Kroto: A British chemist who shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering fullerenes. Kroto’s interest in carbon-rich stars helped prompt the experiment Smalley’s team performed.
Laser ablation: A method that removes material from a target by irradiating it with a laser. Smalley’s team vaporized graphite with a laser to create carbon clusters.
Interstellar medium: The matter and radiation occupying the space between stars in a galaxy. Kroto studied carbon-chain molecules detected in this environment before the fullerene experiment.
Nanotechnology: The design and study of structures and devices at nanometer scales. Fullerenes became a prominent molecular building block in the emerging field.
Robert Curl: An American chemist who shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of fullerenes. Curl connected Kroto with Smalley’s laboratory, where their collaboration produced the discovery.
Molecular beam: A directed stream of molecules or atoms moving through a vacuum. The experiment cooled and carried graphite-derived clusters in a molecular beam.
Red giant: A luminous, expanded star in a late stage of stellar evolution. Carbon-rich red giants supplied the astronomical setting for the molecular puzzle that motivated the collaboration.
Carbon nanotube: A cylindrical carbon nanostructure formed from a rolled sheet of hexagonally bonded carbon atoms. Fullerene research helped focus attention on other closed or curved carbon structures.
James R. Heath: An American chemist who contributed to the 1985 discovery of buckminsterfullerene as a graduate student. Heath helped generate and analyze the carbon clusters central to the discovery.
Time-of-flight mass spectrometry: A mass-analysis method that separates ions by how long they take to travel a fixed distance. Mass spectra revealed an unusually abundant carbon cluster containing 60 atoms.

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