Researchers Probe 'Buckyballs'

WASHINGTON (AP) - Scientists at Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs report that they achieved superconductivity - electricity flowing without resistance - with carbon-60 at a temperature of about minus-249 degrees by combining the carbon molecules with two chemical compounds, chloroform and bromoform.

This mixture substantially raises the temperature at which carbon-60 can achieve superconductivity. Previous experiments by the Bell Labs group had shown that carbon-60 - known as fullerenes or buckyballs after Buckminster Fuller - when mixed with other chemicals could superconduct at minus-366 degrees F.

A report on the research appears Friday in the journal Science.

Hendrik Schon of Bell Labs, senior author of the study, said the work makes it much more likely that carbon-60 will become a useful superconductor in high-speed computers.

The higher temperature means that electronic circuits made with carbon-60 would be superconductors at a cooling temperature achieved by liquid nitrogen, he said. Previously, the lower temperature would require the use of liquid helium which is more expensive and difficult to maintain.

``This is what people have been trying to do all along,' Art Ramirez, a physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, said in Science. He predicted that other labs will now scramble to try to match Schon's work.

Carbon-60 is a molecule with 60 atoms of carbon. It forms a soccer-ball like shape with a lattice, or ribbed frame, that resembles the geodesic dome designed by architect Fuller. Carbon-60 molecules are formally known as fullerenes, but are commonly called buckyballs because of their shape and name.

Buckyballs were discovered in 1985 and have been a favorite experimental molecule for chemists because of their unusual properties.

Wires made of copper oxide can achieve superconductivity at higher temperatures than carbon-60, but the material is expensive.

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