Highly curved bowl-shaped fragments of fullerenes: synthesis, structural analysis, and physical properties.

Highly curved buckybowls 3, 4, and 5 were synthesized from planar precursors, fluoranthenes 8, benzo[k]fluoranthenes 10 and naphtho[1,2-k]-cyclopenta[cd]fluoranthenes 12, respectively, using straightforward palladium-catalyzed cyclization reactions. These fluoranthene-based starting materials were easily prepared from 1,8-bis(arylethynyl)naphthalenes 6. Both buckybowls 3 and 4 are fragments of C60 , whereas 5 is a unique subunit of C70 .