Ferromagnetic fullerene

New magnetic forms of C 60 have been identified which occur in the rhombohedral polymer phase. The existence of previously reported ferromagnetic rhombohedral C 60 is confirmed. This property has been shown to occur over a range of preparation temperatures at 9 GPa. The structure is shown to be crystalline in nature containing whole undamaged buckyballs. Formation of radicals is most likely due to thermally activated shearing of the bridging bond resulting in dangling bond formation. With increasing temperatures this process occurs in great enough numbers to trigger cage collapse and graphitization. The magnetically strongest sample was formed at 800 K, and has a saturated magnetization at 10 K, in fields above 3 kOe, of 0.045 emu g -1 .