British chemist Harold Kroto was co-discoverer of C60, a previously unknown form of carbon also called buckminsterfullerene (named for its atomic structure's resemblance to R. Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes). He won the Nobel Prize in 1996, shared with his colleagues in this discovery, Robert F. Curl, Jr. and Richard E. Smalley. He has also studied the electronic spectroscopy of free radicals, fullerene chemistry, multiple bond molecule design, and the molecular structures of carbon vapor and nanotubes.
[1] "I am a devout atheist -- nothing else makes any sense to me and I must admit to being bewildered by those, who in the face of what appears so obvious, still believe in a mystical creator." (From his Nobel Autobiography).
Father: Heinz Krotoschiner
Mother: Edith Krotoschiner
Wife: Margaret Henrietta Hunter (m. 1963, two sons)
Son: Stephen
Son: David
High School: Bolton School, Bolton, Lancashire, UK (1957)
University: BS Chemistry, University of Sheffield (1961, honours)
University: PhD Molecular Spectroscopy, University of Sheffield (1964)
Lecturer: Chemistry, University of Sussex (1967-77)
Teacher: Chemistry, University of Sussex (1977-85)
Professor: Chemistry, University of Sussex (1985-2004)
Professor: Francis Eppes Professor of Chemistry, Florida State University (2004-)
Bell Laboratories (1966-67)
National Research Council of Canada (1964-66)
APS International Prize for New Materials Research 1992 (with Robert F. Curl and R. E. Smalley)
Italgas Prize for Innovation in Chemistry 1992
RSC Longstaff Prize 1993
Agilent Technologies Europhysics Prize 1994
Knight of the British Empire 1996
Nobel Prize for Chemistry 1996 (with Robert F. Curl, Jr. and Richard E. Smalley)
Manchester John Dalton Medal 1998
Erasmus Medal of Academia Europaea 2000
Faraday Prize 2001
Copley Medal 2004
Academia Europaea 1993
Finnish Academy of Science and Arts Foreign Member
Korean Academy of Science and Technology Foreign Member
Mexican Academy of Sciences Foreign Member
National Academy of Sciences Foreign Associate
Royal Microscopical Society
Royal Society 1990
Royal Society of Chemistry President (2002-04)
Royal Society of Edinburgh 1998
World Technology Network
German Ancestry Maternal (from Berlin)
Jewish Ancestry Paternal
Polish Ancestry Paternal (from Bojanowo)
AKA Harold Walter Krotoschiner