K. M. Creegan, J. L. Robbins, W.K. Robbins, et al., "Synthesis and characterization of C60O, the first fullerene epoxide," Journal of the American Chemical Society, 114:1103-5, 1992.
Donald M. Cox (Exxon Research and Engineering Co., Annandale, N.J.): "Fullerenes and C60 in particular are now available in useful quantities, thanks to the discovery of the arc synthesis method by W. Kratschmer and colleagues (Nature, 347:354, 1990). `This ready availability of C60--or buckyball, as it is more colloquially known--has stimulated an upsurge in chemistry devoted to producing new derivatives from this unique molecular building block. The discovery, isolation, and characterization of one of the simplest of these, the mono-epoxide of buckyball, C60O, are the subjects of this paper.
"Amos Smith III of the University of Pennsylvania and I led a team of researchers that found that C60O can be synthesized in good yield by photo-oxidation of buckyball benzene solutions. We also showed...