Olympicene: Smallest 5-Ringed Structure Ever Created

The molecule, C19H12, is only 1.2 nanometers wide—about 100,000 times thinner than a human hair.
Olympicene: Smallest 5-Ringed Structure Ever Created
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[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFp8Eoh_Vqo[/video]

A tiny molecule called olympicene has been synthesized by a team of European scientists. The molecule, C19H12, is only 1.2 nanometers wide—about 100,000 times thinner than a human hair.

The idea began with Graham Richards, a member of the U.K.’s Royal Society of Chemistry Council.

“When doodling in a planning meeting, it occurred to me that a molecular structure with three hexagonal rings above two others would make for an interesting synthetic challenge,” he explained in a press release.

“I wondered: could someone actually make it, and produce an image of the actual molecule?”

<a><img class="size-medium wp-image-1787006" title=" 	 Olympicene. The black bar corresponds to 0.5 nanometers. (IBM Research - Zurich, University of Warwick, Royal Society of Chemistry) " src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/olympicene.jpg" alt="Olympicene. The black bar corresponds to 0.5 nanometers. (IBM Research - Zurich, University of Warwick, Royal Society of Chemistry)" width="350" height="309"/></a>
Olympicene. The black bar corresponds to 0.5 nanometers. (IBM Research - Zurich, University of Warwick, Royal Society of Chemistry)