Chemists discovered buckyballs—cagelike molecules of 60 carbon atoms—more than 20 years ago. Members of a family of carbon cages known as fullerenes, buckyballs form spontaneously in a hot gas of vaporized carbon. But the exact mechanics of their formation have remained somewhat hazy.
One theory holds that larger fullerenes form first, then shed atoms as they cool, shrinking to become buckyballs.
Researchers have now filmed giant fullerenes in the act. Jianyu Huang of the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque and his colleagues ran an electric current through multiwalled carbon nanotubes and filmed the results with atomic resolution using a transmission electron microscope.