A disk-aromatic bowl cluster B30: toward formation of boron buckyballsElectronic supplementary information (ESI) available: Computational methods; shapes of selected MOs and shapes and relative energies of the low-lying isomers of B30 at the TPSSh/6-311+G(d) level. See DOI: 10.1039/c3cc48392d

The B 30 boron cluster has a bowl rather than a double-ring or a triple-ring tubular structure. This bowl isomer exhibits disk-aromaticity similar to that found for B 20 2− and B 19 − clusters. We confirmed that the concept of disk-aromaticity can be applied to both planar and non-planar systems. The B 30 cluster is a bowl-shape structure, rather than a double-ring tubular form and exhibits disk-aromatic features similar to those of B 19 − and B 20 2− . It suggests a consistent route for the formation of boron buckyballs such as B 80 and B 92 from multiple B 30 units.