The researchers stabilized a carbon molecule in the shape of a ring by adding “bumpers” to protect its atoms
Harry Anderson
A new type of carbon molecule has been studied under normal conditions at room temperature. This only marks the second time it has been done, after the Spherical Buckyballs were synthesized 35 years ago. The breakthrough could lead to extremely effective materials for new electronic and quantum technologies.
Cyclic carbon, molecules made up of a ring of carbon atoms, could display bizarre chemical behavior or drive unusual electricity – just like their fully carbon, buckyball and nanotube molecular cousins. But these rings are so delicate that they generally collapse, or in some cases, even explode, before researchers have the possibility of studying them.
“Cyclic carbon are intriguing molecules and we try to do them for a long time,” said Harry Anderson at the University of Oxford. This has traditionally required extremely severe conditions in order to keep molecules long enough to be studied. But Anderson and his colleagues found a way to stabilize cyclical carbon at room temperature.
The technique consists in modifying a cyclic carbon. The researchers demonstrated it on a molecule never wooded: a ring of 48 carbon atoms, called cyclo[48]carbon, or c48. Anderson and his colleagues added “bumpers” to the C48Film it through three smaller rings, to protect the 48 atoms from collisions with each other – or with other molecules.
“There is no unnecessary decoration,” explains Max von Delius at the University of Ulm in Germany. “There is absolute beauty in simplicity.”
The new structure, called cyclo[48]carbon [4]Catenana, remained stable enough to study for about two days, allowing researchers to examine the cyclo[48]Carbon in detail for the first time. Curiously, the 48 carbon of the molecule acted as if they were arranged in an infinite chain, a structure theoretically capable of transferring the electrical load from an atom to the next indefinitely.
This possible power driver of electricity indicates that cyclic carbon could be used in a range of new generation technologies, including transistors, solar cells, semiconductors and quantum devices. However, additional research is necessary to confirm this.
The new technique for stabilizing cyclical carbon can also inspire other researchers to study their own exotic carbon molecules. “I think there may be a race now,” says Von Delius. “Consider this long ring as a springboard towards the manufacture of the infinite chain.”
A chain of single carbon molecules, explains Von Delius, would make an even better driver than a ring like C48. “It will be really, really incredible – and really the next step,” he says.
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