The exotic structure and properties of C₆₀ fullerene has inspired chemists to seek its analogues made of elements other than carbon. Boron features the B₁₂ icosahedron motif in bulk materials, and can form many types of multi-atom clusters, giving it great potential to form fullerene-like structures.

Through first-principles calculations, Yanming Ma and co-workers at Jilin University, Changchun, China, have identified a stable D_2h-symmetric boron cage composed of 38 atoms. Using an algorithm optimized for cluster prediction with a global minimization of energy surface, the authors found this highly symmetric B₃₈ fullerene analogue made of 56 triangles and 4 hexagons, stabilized by a large energy gap and σ and π dual aromaticity.

The newly revealed medium-sized boron cluster is predicted to be more stable than the common quasi-planar B₁₂ and double-ring B₂₀ clusters. In addition, these findings may eventually lead to the experimental synthesis of this B₃₈ fullerene analogue.

• B38: An All-boron Fullerene Analogue,
  J. Lv, Y. Wang, L. Zhu, Y. Ma,
  Nanoscale 2014.
  DOI: 10.1039/C4NR01846J