Template-free solution growth of highly regular, crystal orientation-ordered C 60 nanorod bundles

Crystal orientation-ordered C60 nanorod bundles have been assembled, where each C60 nanorod maintains its individual shape and identity with unpolymerized bucky balls and all of the nanorods are vertically aligned with a high density. The key to this lies in the assembly of the C60 nanorod bundles from the nanoscopic to microscopic and macroscopic scale. The novel structure of C60 nanorod bundles leads to a high photoresponse, which is promising for applications in optical devices.