Common Electronic Structure and Pentagon Pairing in Extractable Fullerenes

We have found the bunching of the lowest three unoccupied states and the pentagon pairing in extractable fullerenes. These should be related to each other since lower unoccupied states are found to be spatially distributed on pentagons. In addition, the presence of both prevalent and rare structural units constituting extractable fullerenes has been revealed. A series of these findings sheds new light on the fullerene growth mechanism and on the design of larger-fullerene conductors.