Structures, fundamental properties, and potential applications of low-dimensional C 60 polymers and other nanocarbons: a review.

Since carbon (C) atom has a variety of chemical bonds via hybridization between s and p atomic orbitals, it is well known that there are robust carbon materials. In particular, discovery of C ₆₀ has been an epoch making to cultivate nanocarbon fields. Since then, nanocarbon materials such as nanotube and graphene have been reported. It is interesting to note that C ₆₀ is soluble and volatile unlike nanotube and graphene. This indicates that C ₆₀ film is easy to be produced on any kinds of substrates, which is advantage for device fabrication. In particular, electron-/photo-induced C ₆₀ polymerization finally results in formation of one-dimensional (1D) metallic peanut-shaped and 2D dumbbell-shaped semiconducting C ₆₀ polymers, respectively. This enables us to control the physicochemical properties of C ₆₀ films using electron-/photo-lithography techniques. In this review, we focused on the structures, fundamental properties, and potential applications of the low-dimensional C ₆₀ polymers and other nanocarbons such as C ₆₀ peapods, wavy-structured graphene, and penta-nanotubes with topological defects. We hope this review will provide new insights for producing new novel nanocarbon materials and inspire broad readers to cultivate new further research in carbon materials.
Competing Interests: The authors declare no potential conflict of interest.
(© 2024 The Author(s). Published by National Institute for Materials Science in partnership with Taylor & Francis Group.)