The first true inorganic fullerenes?

摘要

Boron nitride and materials of composition MX_2, where M is molybdenum or tungsten and X is sulphur or selenium, can form fullerene-like structures such as nested polyhedra or nanotubes. However, the analogy to the carbon fullerene family4 falls short because no small preferred structure akin to C_(60) (ref. 5) has been found. We have discovered nano-octahedra of MoS_2 of discrete sizes in soots that we prepared by laser ablation of pressed MoS_2 targets. These nano-octahedra are much larger than C_(60) structures, having edge lengths of about 4.0 and 5.0 nanometres, and may represent the first 'inorganic fullerenes'.