From Small Fullerenes to Superlattices

Carbon and silicon are among the most important elements because of their application in many fields, ranging from astrophysics to biology. Their manipulation at the nanoscale has already lead to spectacular and well-documented achievements such as fullerenes, nanotubes, and nanowires. Recently, this domain of research has seen an outburst of new structures, experimentally observed or theoretically predicted (e.g., small fullerenes, heterofullerenes, schwarzite, and clathrates) with attractive properties.

This book reviews these exotic futuristic species and their potential applications and critically examines the predicting models and the possible routes for their synthesis. The book starts with a review of 2D and 3D crystals based on carbon and/or silicon. The second part of the book is devoted to the description at the nanoscale of the new structures and complex architectures that ensue from them. The originality of the book lies in the fact that it deals with these scarcely evoked structures. The book is, therefore, complementary to the wide existing literature dedicated to popular nanostructures such as graphene, nanotube, and fullerenes.