JILA Researchers Uncover Quantum Structure of Buckyballs[RIGHT]
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The buckyball, formally known as buckminsterfullerene, is extremely complex. Due to its enormous 60-atom size, the overall molecule has a staggeringly high number of ways to vibrate—at least 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 vibrational quantum states when the molecule is warm. That’s in addition to the many different energy states for the buckyball’s rotation and other properties.
As described in the January 4 issue of Science, the JILA team used an updated
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