An Atlas of Fullerenes (International Series of Monographs on Chemistry)

An Atlas of Fullerenes is the first comprehensive introduction to a subject of growing interest among chemists and physicists. Emphasizing the "first order" results that apply to the family as a whole, the atlas covers methods for generating and enumerating fullerene polyhedra, the systematic classification of electronic and spectroscopic signatures of fullerene isomers, isomerization via the Stone Wales re-arrangement, and hypothetical mechanisms for formation and fragmentation. Throughout, the text is complemented by a comprehensive catalog--almost 200 pages of pictures and tables--of fullerene isomers and documentation of a computer program that can be used to extend the catalog. The structural diversity encompassed by the fullerene definition of a trivalent carbon cage containing only pentagonal and hexagonal rings is simply staggering. An Atlas of Fullerenes, however, offers a systematic approach to the subject in what will surely be the standard reference for students, experimentalists who want to identify new fullerenes, computational chemists and physicists who seek to predict stable isomers and investigate general trends, and mathematicians attempting to unravel the secrets of this fascinating class of polyhedra.