First-Principles Computational Studies of Alkali-Doped C60 Fullerides.

摘要

Researchers at AT and T Bell Laboratories reported the discovery of superconductivity at 18 K in a potassium-doped fullerene solid, kxC60. This marked a major turning point in the young history of the C60 molecule 'buckminsterfullerene': from a hypothetical molecular (1985), to small-scale (mg) production of crystalline powders (1988), to large-scale synthesis (1990), to a material with the highest transition temperature of any molecular superconductor. This history represents only one of many research lines. Concurrently with the work at AT and T on partial doping, researchers at the Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter at the University of Pennsylvania were doping solid C60 to saturation with potassium. The resulting pure phase, K6C60, was characterized by x-ray diffraction in April 1991: the lattice was body-centered cubic, with the C60 molecules essentially undistorted, orientationally ordered, and each surrounded by a cage of 24 K atoms. Nothing was known about the electronic structure at this early stage.