Evidence of kinetic trapping in clusters of C60 molecules

Molecular dynamics simulations of the growth of nanoclusters of C60 provide convincing evidence that experimental magic numbers, which are associated with structures based on Mackay icosahedra, are of kinetic origin. This finding resolves a long-standing contradiction between the experimental observations and the theoretically predicted most stable structures. Our results show that, even if a sticky intermolecular potential energetically disfavors icosahedral structures, the latter are frequently produced because the stickiness of the potential itself enhances kinetic trapping phenomena.