New carbon form has good potential

Chinese scientists have synthesized a new form of carbon known as monolayer polymeric fullerene, which has exhibited good crystallinity and stability that would make it a useful material candidate for electronics, catalysts and quantum computing, according to a study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.

Fullerene, sometimes referred to as "buckyballs", is a cage-like structure made of 60 connected carbon atoms that resembles the shape of a hollow soccer ball.

Despite its complex form, this allotrope of carbon is found in nature and space, and has been the subject of intense research, especially in materials science, electronics and nanotechnology, since its discovery in 1985.