Long-Range Ordered Carbon Clusters: A Crystalline Material with Amorphous Building Blocks

Amorphous Crystals One usually thinks of a crystal as containing atoms, molecules, or other ordered units arranged in a periodic fashion to make a larger structure. L. Wang et al. (p. 825 ; see the Perspective by D. Wang and Fernandez-Martinez ) compressed a solvate of xylene in C 60 (fullerene) to very high pressures at room temperature, which caused the fullerene molecules to collapse and form amorphous clusters but with each cluster retaining its position in the original crystal lattice because of the interaction with the intercalated xylene molecules. Thus, a crystal was formed from amorphous constituents. On heating at atmospheric pressure, the xylene disappeared and the sample became completely amorphous.