Donald Huffman
American professor of physics (1935-2025)
Donald R. Huffman (1935, November 2, 2025) was an American academic Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Arizona. With Wolfgang Krätschmer, he developed a technique in 1990 for the simple production of large quantities of C60, or Buckminsterfullerene. Previously, in 1982~1983, he and Krätschmer had found, in a UV spectrum, the first signal of C60 ever observed.
Huffman and his team were nominated for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry but didn’t get it due to technicalities.
Huffman was featured prominently in "Race to Catch a Buckyball", a 1995 episode of the Nova documentary series.
Huffman died on November 2, 2025, at the age of 90.
01Awards
- Hewlett Packard Europhysics Prize, 1994 (with Wolfgang Kratschmer, Harold Kroto and Richard Smalley)
- Materials Research Society, Gold Medal 1993, For Synthesis and Pioneering Study of Fullerenes
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Donald Huffman”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- C60 Image for Cover cropped 3.png by Pd1000, CC BY-SA 4.0
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