Tai-Shan Wang, Ning Chen, Jun-Feng Xiang, Bao Li, Jing-Yi Wu, Wei Xu, Li Jiang, Kai Tan,Chun-Ying Shu, Xin Lu, Chun-Ru Wang　　

　　Endohedral metallofullerenes have broadened the range of fullerenes due to their novel structures and promising applications. Here we report the synthesis, isolation and characterization of a 'Russian-doll'-style fullerenes, which contain three distinct molecules trapped within one another. At the centre is a small C₂ species which is nestled inside a tetrahedron of four scandium atoms, and then the metal cluster is trapped inside a large C₈₀ ball.　

　　The novelty of this work is mainly on the architectural beauty of this nanoscopic molecule. The multi-shelled fullerene molecule shows perfect icosahedral symmetry, according to the spectroscopic characterizations, the 6-atom inner cluster Sc₄C₂ rotates freely inside the C₈₀ fullerene cage at room temperature, so it may be used in the quantum information processing. It seems even such a big cluster is not the up-limit to be encaged in the C₈₀ fullerene, and C₈₀ encaging a larger, yet structurally more complicated, atomic cluster is expected; Moreover, in light of quantum chemical calculations, the inner C₂ species is in an unusually high charge state, 6, which is also highly interested in general chemistry.

J. Am. Chem. Soc. 131, 16646, 2009