Document 
Eur. Phys. J. D 16, 341-343 (2001)
Inorganic nanotubes and fullerenes
Structure and properties of hypothetical phosphorus fullerenes
G. Seifert1, T. Heine2 and P.W. Fowler31 Theoretische Physik, Universität-GH Paderborn, 33098 Paderborn, Germany
2 Department of Physical Chemistry, University of Geneva, 1211 Genève, Switzerland
3 University of Exeter, School of Chemistry, Exeter, EX4 4QD, UK
seifert@phys.uni-paderborn.de
(Received 24 November 2000)
Abstract
The possibility of stable non-carbon fullerenes is
discussed for the case of phosphorus fullerene-like cage structures.
On the basis of Density Functional Tight Binding calculations
it is shown that many such cages correspond to metastable structures,
but with increasing nuclearity become less stable with respect to
separate molecular P4 units. Stability rules, known for carbon
fullerenes, such as the "isolated pentagon rule" , do not
reflect the different electronic and steric requirements of the
phosphorus atom. The computational results tend to rule out
phosphorus fullerenes.
36.40.-c - Atomic and molecular clusters.
61.48+c - Fullerenes and fullerene-related materials.
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag 2001