THE 3RD ALLOTROPIC FORM OF CARBON

For many chemists, the molecules of the year 1990 are C60 and C70. The recent report of an efficient route of preparation-organic chemists might disagree with the word synthesis-has sparked numerous investigations into the structure, chemical reactivity, and electro- and photochemical behavior of these species. In 1991, we can expect to learn much more about this third modification of carbon (the picture on the right, which shows crystals of C70 (actually cornflower blue) was provided by F. Diederich, Los Angeles).