Quasi-Periodic Crystals—The Long Road from Discovery to Acceptance*

Three surprising discoveries on the nature of matter and its properties were published in the mid-1980s. All these discoveries led to Nobel prizes. The first discovery was in 1985, when fullerenes were discovered by Robert F. Curl Jr, Sir Harold W. Kroto, and Richard E. Smalley. Fullerenes, also known as buckyballs, are spherical molecules composed of carbon atoms. The discovery of fullerenes launched the field of nano-materials, one of the fastestgrowing fields in chemistry today. In 1996, 11 years after the publication of the discovery, the three researchers were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry. No controversy surrounded this discovery.