Richard E. Smalley is best known for a single molecular discovery. It won him the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He shared the honor with Robert F. Curl, Jr. and Sir Harold W. Krooto. They found carbon-60. The scientific community calls it buckminsterfullerene. The world calls it the buckyball. It was the first of its kind.
Smalley was born in Akron, Ohio, on June 6, 1943. He died in Houston, Texas, on October 28, 2005. He was an American chemist and physicist. His path to the Nobel Prize started at Princeton University. He earned his Ph.D. there in 1973. He did postdoctoral work at the University of Chicago. Then he moved to Rice University in Houston. He started teaching there in 1976. By 1982, he held the Gene and Norman Hackerman Professorship in Chemistry. He added a professorship in physics in 1990.
The Apparatus That Found a New Form of Carbon
Rice University became the birthplace of fullerenes. This was the third known form of pure carbon. Diamond and graphite were the only ones before. Smalley had built a specific tool for this work. It was a laser supersonic cluster beam apparatus. The machine could vaporize any material. It turned the material into a plasma of atoms. Researchers could then study the clusters that formed. These were aggregates of tens to many tens of atoms.
The breakthrough came from a conversation. Kroto visited Smalley’s lab. He saw the apparatus. He realized it could simulate chemical conditions. Specifically, the atmosphere of carbon stars. This would provide evidence for his conjecture. He believed carbon chains originated in stars. Smalley agreed to test it.
The 11-Day Experiment That Defined a Field
The experiments happened in September 1985. They lasted eleven days. The team included Kroto, Smalley, and Curl. Student coworkers James Heath, Yuan Liu, and Sean O’Brien helped execute the work. Smalley’s apparatus vaporized graphite. The laser hit the carbon. They were simulating giant star atmospheres.
The results were immediate. The study confirmed carbon chains could be produced. But something else appeared. A hitherto unknown carbon species formed spontaneously. It was abundant. It contained 60 atoms.
The atoms of fullerenes are arranged in a closed shell.
This molecule was stable. C60 is the smallest stable fullerene. The 60 carbon atoms fit together into a cage. The bonds resembled the seams on a soccer ball. The shape matched the geodesic domes of architect R. Buckminster Fuller. Hence the name buckminsterfullerene. Or simply, the buckyball.
Smalley was a leading supporter of nanotechnology. His work laid the groundwork for the field. He played a key role in the National Nanotechnology Initiative. This federal program started in 2000. It remains a major research and development effort. Smalley’s legacy is not just a molecule. It is the infrastructure he helped build for the nanoscale world.
