美国赖斯大学教授罗伯特·柯尔和理查德·斯莫利以及英国萨塞克斯大学教授哈罗德·克罗托获得了1996年诺贝尔化学奖。因为,他们在1985年发现了碳的球状结构——富勒式结构,其原子以6种晶体形式排列在封闭的框架中,其形状如一个球。这种结构的碳又被称为“布基球”。 The 1996 Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to Robert Cole and Richard Smalley, Rice University professors from the United States, and Harold Crotto, a professor at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom. Because they discovered in 1985 the spherical structure of carbon - the Fuller structure, the atoms in six kinds of crystal form arranged in a closed frame, the shape of a ball. This structure of carbon is also known as “buckyball.”