using DESY's ultrabright X-ray source PETRA III, researchers have observed in real-time how football-shaped carbon molecules arrange themselves into ultra-smooth layers. Together with theoretical simulations, the investigation reveals the fundamentals of this growth process for the first time in detail, as the team around Sebastian Bommel (DESY and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin) and Nicola Kleppmann (Technische Universität Berlin) reports in the scientific journal Nature Communications. This knowledge will eventually enable scientists to tailor nanostructures from these carbon molecules for certain applications, which play an increasing role in the promising field of plastic electronics. The team consisted of scientists from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, Universität Tübingen and DESY