Boron balls

A new study by Boris Yakobson, professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and of chemistry at Rice University, and his associates Nevill Gonzalez Szwacki and Arta Sadrzadeh predicts the existence and stability of another “buckyball” consisting entirely of boron atoms.

The original buckyball, a cage-shaped molecule of 60 carbon atoms, was discovered at Rice by Robert Curl, Harold Kroto and Richard Smalley in 1985. The boron buckyball is structurally similar to the original C60 fullerene, but it has an additional atom in the centre of each hexagon, which significantly increases stability.

‘This is the first prediction of its possible existence,’ Yakobson said of the boron buckyball, or B80. ‘This has not been observed or even conceived of before. We do hope it may lead to a significant breakthrough.’

In the earliest stages of their work, the team attempted to build a “buckyball” using silicon atoms but determined that it would collapse on itself. Their search for another possible atom led them on a short trip across the periodic table.