The discovery of borospherenes unveiled the capacity of boron to form fullerene-like cage structures. While fullerenes are known to entrap metal atoms to form endohedral metallofullerenes, few metal atoms have been observed to be part of the fullerene cages. Here we report the observation of a class of remarkable metallo-borospherenes, where metal atoms are integral parts of the cage surface. We have produced La3B18–and Tb3B18–and probed their structures and bonding using photoelectron spectroscopy and theoretical calculations. Global minimum searches revealed that the most stable structures of Ln3B18–are hollow cages with
- Award ID(s):
- 1763380
- Publication Date:
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10157952
- Journal Name:
- Nature Communications
- Volume:
- 11
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2041-1723
- Publisher:
- Nature Publishing Group
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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