🚀 go-pugleaf

	have a nagging question...

	Recently someone from Arizona (Hoffman's (?) group) came over
to UNM to talk about fullerenes. He was once a grad student studying 
inter-galactic clouds or something like that, when Fullerenes were
discovered.

	He mentioned that fullerenes can also be made by MBE growth.
Being a compound semiconductors person, i am used to the concept of
MBE being used to grow thin films/superlattices, etc. Except for 
some 3-D defects, the growth usually is uniform across the wafer (at 
that's what we try to do most of the time).

	How does a fullerene form? i would have expected a flat
thin film of C to deposit. What makes the few atoms that first contact
the substrate to grow upward, with the "prior" knowledge of  C-60
geometry? How does the structure actually grow and under what special
conditions (in an MBE)? Can these be grown with MOCVD?

	More generally, how do fullerenes form at all? There must be
some particular feature about the bonding in this structure, that
justifies the Carbon atoms forming the elaborate sphere. If i am
correct, an ordered structure like that must entail lower entropy
than just amorphous C; i.e., there must be energy put in during its
formation to make it a preferred structure. So why does it happen?

	I hope these aren't silly questions. Any info/references will
be welcome. i am curious about the topic and slowly getting interested,
anticipating some non-linear optics applications. 

							swami srinivasan
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swaminathan srinivasan
center for high tech materials
univ. of new mexico, albuquerque		cogito ergo sum

swami@chtm.eece.unm.edu
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