Buckyballs, diamonds inspire new synthetic molecule
Square, cage-shaped molecules called diamondoids (left) linked to soccer-ball shaped buckyballs (right) create a new molecule called a buckydiamondoid, center, in this illustration. These new hybrid molecules may be useful for developing molecular electronic devices in the future.
Manoharan Lab/Stanford University
Guest post by Andrew Grant
Hitching a hollow ball of carbon to a diamond-shaped lattice yields a useful piece of electrical circuitry. The new synthetic molecule consists of a buckyball, a bound set of 60 carbon atoms shaped like a soccer ball, bonded to diamantane, a cage-shaped arrangement of carbon and hydrogen that resembles diamond. The creation, dubbed a buckydiamondoid, allows electricity to flow in a single direction only, researchers report September 9 in Nature Communications.
