Number 31 (Story #1), April 26, 1991 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein BUCKYBALLS ARE SUPERCONDUCTING. Arthur F. Hebard (201-582-4944) of AT&T Bell Labs said at a recent meeting of the American Chemical Society in Atlanta (and in the 18 April issue of Nature) that films of carbon-60, doped with potassium, become superconducting at a temperature of 18 K. Indeed doping C-60 seems to be easy. Richard Smalley of Rice University has been able to replace a few carbon atoms in the molecules' soccerball structure with boron and nitrogen atoms; the result he calls "dopyballs." According to Fred Wudl of UC Santa Barbara, "It's a starting material for making a whole new family of organic compounds." (Science News 20 April 1991.)