Or molecular engineering?

'This' is 18 carbon atoms formed into a ring. It's horrifyingly unstable - they had to cool their equipment down to 5 degrees above absolute zero to get it to work - and defies any sane person's notion of chemistry. It was made piece by piece, quite possibly by using an atomic force microscope (which is a hilariously overwrought name) to remove unwanted atoms one at a time. This is not, needless to say, how chemistry is normally done.

And It is the Forger of Bonds, the Bender of Orbitals, the Unbroken and Unbounded Ring of the Eternal Frost. All hail!

hS, Herald of the Binder

... but it's paywalled.

The abstract says that Characterization of cyclo[18]carbon by high-resolution atomic force microscopy revealed a polyynic structure with defined positions of alternating triple and single bonds, so I think they're basing their characterisation solely on the AFM. Looking at the pictures, you can definitely see the differing electron density around the ring, with nine 'large' nodes and nine 'small' ones. If you don't know what you're looking at, it looks more like a 9-carbon ring, but comparing the image of the precursor shows that 'large blob means atom' doesn't stand up.

Now that you say it, it does seem like the double-bond-equivalent pi orbitals should interact. Is it possible that the shape of the structure, which is very strained, is preventing it? I don't know; organic chemistry isn't my field, and the Wikipedia Aromaticity page doesn't feature the word 'triple' at all. I'd love to hear any more thoughts you have!

For of course, all knowledge will rebound to the glory of the Binder. All hail!

hS, Herald of the Binder

... what it could be used for; the image stopped me before I reached that far. But yes, it looks like they're viewing it as a graphene relative, with all the speculative properties that go with that.

Not that it's necessarily a good idea to stick an Elder God into your PC... the really cool stuff is definitely the experimental side of this:

1/ The molecule is made up of a whole bunch of carbon-carbon triple bonds. You don't often see a triple bond, because they're under intense strain just to exist; in this case, they've not only made them, they've bent them. It's the molecular equivalent of bending steel bars with your bare hands.

2/ They didn't do this by bulk chemistry, but by manufacturing a single molecule, one step at a time. That isn't even chemistry any more - it's nano-scale engineering, LEGO made of atoms.

3/ And then they took pictures! It's only a few years since we first got AFM pictures detailed enough to show single atoms, and they still fill me with appropriately-unholy glee. (Given the diabolical red and purple colour scheme IBM used on their 'Hellgate' image, I'm pretty sure they agree.)

hS