Fullerenes in Sol-Gel Materials

The family of fullerene molecules is composed of a large variety of compounds that have been synthesized following the discovery of C₆₀ in 1985. The chemistry of fullerenes, developed in these last years, has allowed designing the properties of this family of molecules for specific applications in materials science. One of the main tasks to build up solid state devices based on fullerenes is the synthesis of materials doped with a highly dispersed and homogeneous distribution of fullerenes. Many of the peculiar photophysical properties, such as the reverse saturable absorption used to obtain a solid state optical limiter, are in fact lost in the aggregates of fullerenes. Sol-gel processing allows preparing inorganic oxides and hybrid organic-inorganic materials at low temperatures and presents an interesting alternative to organic polymers to entrap molecules of the fullerene family in a solid matrix. Porous inorganic solids and aerogels are also important classes of materials that can be synthesized via sol-gel and can act as hosts of fullerenes. In the present article we have reviewed the main achievements of sol-gel processing of fullerene based nanocomposite materials.