Structures, fundamental properties, and potential applications of low-dimensional C₆₀ polymers and other nanocarbons:...

Since carbon (C) atom has a variety of chemical bonds via hybridization between s and p atomic orbitals, it is well known that there are robust carbon materials. In particular, discovery of C₆₀ has been an epoch making to cultivate nanocarbon fields. Since then, nanocarbon materials such as nanotube and graphene have been reported. It is interesting to note that C₆₀ is soluble and volatile unlike nanotube and graphene. This indicates that C₆₀ film is easy to be produced on any kinds of substrates, which is advantage for device fabrication. In particular, electron-/photo-induced C₆₀ polymerization finally results in formation of one-dimensional (1D) metallic peanut-shaped and 2D dumbbell-shaped semiconducting C₆₀ polymers, respectively. This enables us to control the physicochemical properties of C₆₀ films using electron-/photo-lithography techniques. In this review, we focused on the structures, fundamental properties, and potential applications of the low-dimensional C₆₀ polymers and other nanocarbons such as C₆₀ peapods, wavy-structured graphene, and penta-nanotubes with topological defects. We hope this review will provide new insights for producing new novel nanocarbon materials and inspire broad readers to cultivate new further research in carbon materials.