Andre Geim is based at the University of Manchester in the UK Two scientists have shared this year’s Nobel Prize for Physics for their “groundbreaking” work on a material with amazing properties.
Andrei Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, both at Manchester University, UK, took the prize for research on graphene.
Graphene is a flat sheet of carbon just one atom thick; it is almost completely transparent, but also extremely strong and a good conductor of electricity.
Its unique properties mean it could have a wide array of practical uses.
The breakthrough could lead to the manufacture of innovative electronics, including faster computers, according to the Nobel Prize Foundation.
“I’m fine, I slept well. I didn’t expect the Nobel Prize this year,” said Dr Geim.
The Nobels are valued at 10m Swedish Kronor (£900,000; 1m euros; $1.5m).
Dr Geim said his plans for the day would not change – he said he would go back to work and carry on with his research papers.
He added that he would “muddle on as before”.
The researchers were both born in Russia, but were based at the University of Manchester when they published their groundbreaking research paper on graphene in 2004.
Graphene is a form of carbon. It is a flat layer of carbon atoms tightly packed into a two-dimensional honeycomb lattice.
Because it is so thin, it is also practically transparent. As a conductor of electricity it performs as well as copper; as a conductor of heat it outperforms all other known materials.
This exotic suite of properties makes graphene particularly suitable for manufacturing transparent touch screens, light panels, and perhaps even solar cells.
Geim and Novoselov first isolated the fine sheets of graphene from graphite, the material which makes up the “lead” in pencils.
One millimetre of graphite actually consists of three million layers of graphene stacked on top of one another.
The layers are weakly held together and are therefore fairly simple to tear off and separate.
The researchers used normal adhesive tape to rip off thin flakes from a piece of graphite.
Then they attached the flakes to a silicon plate and used a microscope to identify the thin layers of graphene among larger fragments of graphite and carbon scraps.
The researchers published their results in the prestigious journal Science in October 2004.
Ten years ago, Dr Geim and Professor Sir Michael Berry from the University of Bristol were jointly awarded an Ig Nobel prize for their experiments using magnetic fields to levitate live frogs.
These tongue-in-cheek awards for “improbable research” have become almost as famous as the real Nobels.
The Nobel prizes also cover chemistry, medicine, literature, peace and economics (more properly called the Sveriges Riksbank Prize). Laureates also receive a medal and a diploma.
On Monday, the Nobel Foundation announced that British scientist Robert Edwards, the man who devised the fertility treatment IVF, had been awarded this year’s prize for medicine.
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