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Portrait of Sir Harold Kroto
Photo: NIMSoffice, Own work · CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Nobel Prize in Chemistry · 1996

Sir Harold Kroto

He helped find the buckyball, a football-shaped carbon molecule that opened a new chemistry, then spent his fame teaching science.

The Nobel citation: “for their discovery of fullerenes”
Born
October 7, 1939, Wisbech, Cambridgeshire , United Kingdom
Died
April 30, 2016, Lewes, East Sussex, United Kingdom
Shared with
Robert F. Curl Jr., Richard E. Smalley
Affiliation at the time
University of Sussex, United Kingdom

Chemistry prize

1996

Shared with 2 other laureates.

Age that year

57years

Born in 1939.

Sources cited

22

Fact-checked September 24, 2026.

  • At school in Bolton he was 'the kid with the funny name': Krotoschiner. His father, a refugee from Berlin, shortened it to Kroto in 1955.
  • The discovery took less than two weeks. Kroto arrived at Rice University on 1 September 1985, and Nature received the paper proposing a football-shaped C60 on 13 September.
  • After 1985, Shell, BP and the Royal Society each turned down his request for £12,000 for a mass spectrometer. He felt the funding system cost Sussex the race to make C60 in bulk.
  • He was in the same school year as the actor Ian McKellen. Two colleagues, writing his Nature obituary, called him the only Nobel laureate to have shared a stage with McKellen.
  • His quest began with carbon chains around giant stars. In 2015 lab tests confirmed that charged C60 molecules drift between the stars, and he lived to see it.

The breakthrough

Buckminsterfullerene: a hollow football made of 60 carbon atoms (1985)

Carbon seemed thoroughly understood: it came as graphite, diamond, soot and charcoal. Kroto, a spectroscopist at the University of Sussex, had helped find long chains of carbon atoms in the gas clouds of space, and he suspected they formed in the hot outer layers of carbon-rich giant stars. To test the idea he needed a machine at Rice University in Texas, built by Richard Smalley, that blasts a solid with a laser and lets the vapor cool into clusters of atoms. In September 1985 Kroto, Smalley, Robert Curl and graduate students James Heath, Sean O'Brien and Yuan Liu fired the laser at graphite. The chains appeared, but so did something stranger: clusters of exactly 60 carbon atoms, far more common and more stable than their neighbors. What shape could make 60 atoms so content? Kroto remembered a paper dome he had once made for his children out of hexagons and pentagons. Smalley reached for scissors and tape and found the answer: 20 hexagons and 12 pentagons close into a hollow ball, the pattern of a soccer ball, with a carbon atom at each of its 60 corners. They named it buckminsterfullerene after the architect Buckminster Fuller, whose geodesic domes use the same trick. Each ball is about 300 million times smaller than a real football. Final proof came in 1990, when other scientists learned to make it by the gram.[3],[4],[5],[6],[7],[8]

“Having chosen something worth doing, never give up and try not to let anyone down.”
Sir Harold Kroto, Closing advice to young people in his autobiography for Les Prix Nobel, written at the time of the 1996 prize.[1]

What it meant for humanity

The buckyball changed how chemists think about their most familiar element. It showed that a large, perfectly symmetrical molecule could assemble itself from hot carbon vapor, and it launched a new field. Once Wolfgang Krätschmer and Donald Huffman found a cheap way to make C60 by the gram in 1990, chemists could modify the cages and build new materials from them, including superconducting salts, polymers and catalysts. By 2012 fullerene chemistry was producing about 1,000 research papers a year. The biggest spin-off was the carbon nanotube. In 1991 Sumio Iijima, using an arc method like the one used to make fullerenes, reported tubes of rolled-up carbon sheets only nanometres wide. Nanotubes conduct heat and electricity well and are extremely strong, and together with fullerenes they helped lay the foundation of nanoscience. Fullerene molecules also long dominated as the electron-accepting ingredient in flexible organic solar cells, until newer materials were designed to replace them. In astronomy, Kroto's question about stars was answered in space itself: in 2015 laboratory measurements confirmed that charged C60 molecules cause two absorption bands seen in the light of distant stars. Kroto spent much of his later life on teaching. He co-founded the Vega Science Trust in 1995 to make science films, started the free online GEOSET teaching project, gave some 70 to 80 lectures a year, and ran buckyball-building workshops for children from Malaysia to Australia. He also handed back one honorary degree, and pledged to return another, to protest cuts to university chemistry departments.

  • Fullerene chemistry grew into a field of its own, with about 1,000 research papers a year by 2012. It produced superconducting salts of C60, new polymers and catalysts, and cages holding metal atoms inside.[1],[3],[9]
  • In 1991 Sumio Iijima reported carbon nanotubes, made with an arc method like the one used to make fullerenes. His report opened a major branch of nanotechnology.[7],[8],[10]
  • Fullerene-based molecules long dominated as the electron acceptor in organic (plastic) solar cells, before newer non-fullerene materials were designed to replace them.[7],[15]
  • In 2015 laboratory spectra confirmed that charged C60 molecules produce two absorption bands seen in starlight, showing that buckyballs exist in interstellar space.[9],[11]
  • Through the Vega Science Trust, the GEOSET online project and hands-on buckyball workshops, he brought science to schoolchildren and teachers on several continents.[1],[8],[9]
  • He handed back an honorary degree from the University of Hertfordshire in 2001, and in 2004 said he would return Exeter's, in protest at cuts to their chemistry departments.[19],[20]

Impact in numbers

Kroto's impact is mainly on knowledge. With Curl, Smalley and their students, he showed that carbon, one of the most studied elements, can form closed cages that assemble themselves from hot vapor. That opened fullerene chemistry, led to the search that turned up carbon nanotubes, and helped found nanoscience. It also tied chemistry to astronomy: the carbon chains he found in space started the work, and C60 itself was later confirmed between the stars. We record no quantified claims. Fullerenes have real but specialized uses, such as the electron acceptors that long dominated organic solar cells, and no published figure measures their total value. Nanotubes have a larger commercial footprint, but they have their own discoverers and history, so crediting their market to Kroto would overstate his share. His other legacy is people: decades of lectures, films and buckyball workshops aimed at making children curious about science.

Fundamental scienceTechnologySpaceEducation

No number is given here on purpose. Some contributions cannot be counted honestly, and we would rather describe them than invent a figure.

The double edge

No direct harm has been traced to fullerenes, but the carbon nanomaterials that grew out of the discovery carry real, if still uncertain, health risks. A 2004 study found that uncoated C60 damaged fats in the brains of fish, and a 2008 study found that long, needle-like carbon nanotubes behaved like asbestos in mice. In 2014 the International Agency for Research on Cancer rated one type of nanotube, MWCNT-7, as possibly carcinogenic to humans, while noting there were no adequate human data. Nanotubes were a downstream development, not Kroto's own discovery. The prize raised questions of credit: Kroto regretted how little recognition went to the graduate students who ran the experiments and to the team that first made C60 in bulk. Useful applications came slowly, as the Nobel committee itself noted in 1996. Kroto's public campaigning against religion was also combative, and he publicly backed the Royal Society's request that a clergyman step down as its director of science education.

  • Moderate

    Nanomaterial health risks

    Uncoated C60 caused significant fat damage (lipid peroxidation) in the brains of largemouth bass exposed to 0.5 ppm for 48 hours. Long multiwalled nanotubes caused asbestos-like inflammation in mice. IARC rated MWCNT-7 nanotubes as possibly carcinogenic (Group 2B) and other nanotubes as not classifiable, with no adequate human evidence either way.[12],[13],[14]

  • Minor

    Credit left out of the prize

    The prize went to the three senior scientists. Kroto wrote that he regretted the far smaller recognition given to graduate students Jim Heath and Sean O'Brien and to Yuan Liu, and to Wolfgang Krätschmer, Donald Huffman and their students, whose 1990 method for making C60 in bulk sparked the field's growth.[1],[3]

  • Minor

    Slow road to applications

    In 1996 the Nobel committee noted that no practically useful applications had yet been produced. Later hopes for drug delivery and electronics have mostly stayed at the research stage, and fullerene acceptors in organic solar cells are being replaced by newer materials. Kroto himself criticized 'hyperflated' application claims in science.[1],[3],[9],[15]

  • Minor

    Combative campaign against religion

    In 2008 he wrote in the Guardian backing the Royal Society's request that the Rev Michael Reiss resign as its director of science education, arguing that religious belief clashes with the intellectual integrity needed to teach science. Richard Dawkins later recalled one Kroto lecture attacking the Templeton Foundation as more outspoken than anything he himself would have dared.[21],[22]

Against the odds

Kroto was born in England and never lived under Nazi rule, but it shaped his family. His Jewish father grew up in Berlin, home in 1933 to about 160,000 Jews, the largest Jewish community in Germany. That year Jewish shops were boycotted and most Jewish civil servants were fired. The 1935 Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of citizenship and banned new marriages between Jews and non-Jewish Germans, the kind of couple his parents were. His father left Berlin in 1937, and Kroto's mother, who was not Jewish, followed months later. From October 1941 more than 60,000 of Berlin's Jews were deported to ghettos and to killing centers such as Auschwitz. In Britain, refugees from Germany came to be treated as enemy aliens once war began. Kroto was born in the first month of the war, and in 1940 his father was interned on the Isle of Man while his mother took the baby to Bolton. The family had lost almost everything and lived in a poor part of town; in his mid-forties his father had to start a new trade. At school Kroto was the boy with the funny name, working constantly to blend in. Later, as a scientist, he faced years of doubt about C60 and a funding system that turned down his requests.

  • 1937

    Exile

    His Jewish father had to leave Nazi Berlin in 1937, crossing into the Netherlands by train; his non-Jewish mother followed a few months later. They restarted their small business in London, but the war soon ended it.[1],[8],[16],[17]

  • 1940

    War

    As a German refugee, his father was interned on the Isle of Man as an enemy alien. His mother was moved with the one-year-old Kroto from London to Bolton.[1],[9],[18]

  • —

    Poverty

    His parents had lost almost everything, and the family lived in a very poor part of Bolton. After the war his father, then about 45, retrained as an apprentice engineer before rebuilding his balloon business in 1955.[1]

  • —

    Other

    At school he was 'the kid with the funny name', Krotoschiner, with German-speaking refugee parents. He later wrote that he made a continual effort to blend in, speaking only English.[1]

  • 1985

    Other

    From 1985 to 1990 some research groups argued that the C60 structure was wrong, or even that the result was an experimental artefact. Proof came only when C60 was made in bulk in 1990.[1],[4]

  • —

    Other

    Between 1985 and 1990 Shell, BP and the Royal Society all declined to fund a £12,000 mass spectrometer he wanted for carbon-arc experiments. He felt this cost his Sussex team the chance to be first to make C60 in bulk.[1]

Jewish background

Jewish fatherDistant from Jewish identity

Kroto's father, Heinz Krotoschiner, was Jewish. His family came from Bojanowo, in today's Poland, and ran a shop in Berlin, where Heinz was born in 1900. Kroto's mother, Edith, also from Berlin, was not Jewish. He grew up with some Jewish practice: he recalled Saturday mornings singing in synagogue in a language he did not understand, and fasting with his father. He wrote that religion never made sense to him, noted that some would not count him as Jewish because his mother was not, and called himself a devout atheist. As an adult he described himself as a humanist and a supporter of Amnesty International.[1],[8],[9]

Key dates

  1. 1937

    His Jewish father, Heinz Krotoschiner, leaves Nazi Berlin for Britain by way of the Netherlands; his mother, Edith, follows months later.[1],[8]

  2. October 7, 1939

    Born Harold Walter Krotoschiner in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, where his mother had been evacuated in the first month of World War II.[1],[2],[9]

  3. 1940

    His father is interned on the Isle of Man as an enemy alien; his mother moves with him from London to Bolton, where he grows up.[1],[7],[9]

  4. 1955

    His father opens a balloon factory in Bolton and shortens the family name to Kroto. Harry spends school holidays working there.[1],[9]

  5. 1964

    Completes a PhD in spectroscopy at the University of Sheffield, after a first-class chemistry degree there in 1961.[1],[3],[7]

  6. 1967

    After postdoctoral work in Ottawa and at Bell Labs in New Jersey, joins the University of Sussex, where he will stay until 2004.[1],[3],[8]

  7. 1974

    Gets his own microwave spectrometer at Sussex. The first molecule studied, the carbon chain HC5N, leads to his work on long carbon chains in space and, in time, to C60.[1],[7]

  8. September 1985

    At Rice University with Robert Curl, Richard Smalley and their students, discovers C60 and proposes its football shape. Nature publishes the paper on 14 November.[3],[6],[8]

  9. August 1990

    His Sussex team extracts C60 from soot a week before Krätschmer and Huffman's bulk method reaches him from Nature, then separates it from C70 and records the NMR line confirming the cage.[1],[3]

  10. 1995

    Co-founds the Vega Science Trust with BBC producer Patrick Reams to make science films for television and the internet.[1],[8]

  11. 1996

    Knighted in the New Year Honours.[1],[8]

  12. October 1996

    Awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley for the discovery of fullerenes.[2],[3]

  13. 2004

    Leaves Sussex for Florida State University to continue research and build GEOSET, a free online library of science teaching.[1],[8]

  14. April 30, 2016

    Dies in Lewes, East Sussex, aged 76, of complications of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).[2],[9]

Sources

  1. 1.Sir Harold Kroto – Biographical (autobiography, 1996, with addendum, July 2012) · NobelPrize.org (Nobel Prize Outreach), 1996
  2. 2.Sir Harold Kroto – Facts · NobelPrize.org (Nobel Prize Outreach)
  3. 3.Press release: The 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry · The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences / NobelPrize.org, 1996
  4. 4.Award ceremony speech, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1996 (Lennart Eberson) · NobelPrize.org, 1996
  5. 5.Symmetry, Space, Stars and C60 (Nobel Lecture, 7 December 1996) · NobelPrize.org, 1996
  6. 6.C60: Buckminsterfullerene (Kroto, Heath, O'Brien, Curl and Smalley), Nature 318, 162-163 · Nature, 1985
  7. 7.Harry Kroto (1939–2016) (obituary by James R. Heath and Robert F. Curl), Nature 533, 470 · Nature, 2016
  8. 8.Richard E. Smalley, Robert F. Curl, and Harold W. Kroto · Science History Institute
  9. 9.Harold Kroto, Nobel Prize-Winning Chemist, Is Dead at 76 (Nicholas St. Fleur) · The New York Times, 2016
  10. 10.Helical microtubules of graphitic carbon (Sumio Iijima), Nature 354, 56-58 · Nature, 1991
  11. 11.Laboratory confirmation of C60+ as the carrier of two diffuse interstellar bands (Campbell et al.), Nature 523, 322-323 · Nature, 2015
  12. 12.Manufactured Nanomaterials (Fullerenes, C60) Induce Oxidative Stress in the Brain of Juvenile Largemouth Bass (Eva Oberdörster), Environmental Health Perspectives 112, 1058-1062 · Environmental Health Perspectives / PubMed Central, 2004
  13. 13.Carbon nanotubes introduced into the abdominal cavity of mice show asbestos-like pathogenicity in a pilot study (Poland et al.), Nature Nanotechnology 3, 423-428 · Nature Nanotechnology, 2008
  14. 14.Carbon Nanotubes, in IARC Monographs Volume 111: Some Nanomaterials and Some Fibres · International Agency for Research on Cancer (WHO), 2017
  15. 15.A review from fullerene dominance to non-fullerene innovation: theoretical perspective on next-generation organic photovoltaics (Rafiq, Sultan and Janjua), RSC Advances · RSC Advances / PubMed Central, 2026
  16. 16.Berlin · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  17. 17.The Nuremberg Race Laws · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  18. 18.Kindertransport, 1938-40 (section on enemy aliens) · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  19. 19.Nobel prize winner joins Exeter closure protest · The Guardian, 2004
  20. 20.Kroto protests cutbacks · Times Higher Education, 2001
  21. 21.Blinded by a divine light (Harry Kroto) · The Guardian, 2008
  22. 22.Harry Kroto (memorial by Richard Dawkins) · Richard Dawkins Foundation, 2016

Fact-checked on September 24, 2026 by a separate AI fact-checking pass that re-opened the sources, with 8 corrections made. How we check

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