After the war, his father became an apprentice engineer and in 1955 opened a factory to make balloons and print faces on them. Around that time, he changed the family name, which is of Silesian origin, to Kroto.

As a boy, Dr. Kroto often worked with his father in the factory. He credited the experience, along with his days playing with a Meccano engineering set, with giving him the problem-solving skills needed to be a research scientist. He attended the Bolton School, where he became fascinated by chemistry and art.

He studied chemistry at the University of Sheffield, earning his undergraduate degree in 1961, and completed his Ph.D there in 1964 with a focus on spectroscopy. As a student, he divided his time between conducting experiments, playing tennis and designing covers for the student magazine, Arrows.

Dr. Kroto completed postdoctoral work in the United States and Canada for three years before returning to England to accept a teaching position at the University of Sussex in 1967.

He began collaborating with Dr. Curl and Dr. Smalley at Rice in the fall of 1985. In their experiments, they blasted graphite with lasers to recreate the plasma conditions found in stars and investigate carbon clusters. The discovery of the 60-carbon molecule came out of these tests.

Mr. Kroto was knighted in 1996. He left Sussex in 2004 for Florida State University, where he taught and conducted research.

In addition to his wife of 53 years, Margaret, he is survived by two sons, Stephen and David.

Dr. Kroto was passionate about mentoring young scientists. He created educational videos through the Vega Science Trust and Florida State’s Geoset, which are online repositories of short science presentations. He also presented his buckyball workshops in Sweden, Malaysia, India, China and Japan.