Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov used a block of carbon and some Scotch tape to create graphene, a new material with extraordinary properties
Konstantin Novoselov (left) and Andre Geim of Manchester University have won the 2010 Nobel prize for physics, for creating graphene. Photograph: University of Manchester/EPA
Two scientists at Manchester University have won the 2010 Nobel prize for physics for creating the thinnest possible flakes of carbon.
The news that Andre Geim, 51, and Konstantin Novoselov, 36, had received the 10m Swedish-kronor (£1m) prize was announced today by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Novoselov is the youngest Nobel laureate since 1973.
Geim and Novoselov were both born in Russia and collaborated as PhD supervisor and student in the Netherlands before moving to Manchester University, one of Britain's top physics institutes.
The scientists' breakthrough came from a deceptively simple experiment in 2004 that involved a block of carbon and some Scotch tape. The two used the tape to strip off layers of carbon that were only one atom thick. These thin wafers of carbon, known as graphene, were found to have extraordinary properties.
Tests showed the graphene layers were stretchy, as strong as steel and almost completely transparent. Graphene is an exceptionally good conductor of heat and electricity, properties that have made it one of the most exciting new materials for producing electronic components, from touchscreens to pollution sensors. The thin wafers can also be used to study some of the more peculiar effects of quantum mechanics.
Graphene consists of carbon atoms held together in a flat lattice like chicken wire. Drawing a pencil across a sheet of paper produces thin sheets of graphite, but Geim and Novoselov managed to find a way to reliably separate these sheets into wafers only a single atom thick. There are around three million sheets of graphene in a millimetre-thick layer of graphite.
Novoselov was chatting online to a friend in Holland at 10am this morning when he heard of his award in a phone call from the Nobel committee. "It was quite shocking. Every October someone speculates about this and you learn not to pay attention."
Geim encouraged creative experiments at the laboratory, Novoselov said. "We'd just try crazy things and sometimes they worked and sometimes not. Graphene was one of those that worked from the very beginning. It's such a robust material and all the effects were so pronounced," said Novoselov.
Despite winning the prize, Novoselov said he was planning to work in other areas of physics and was considering taking a year or two sabbatical. "All this graphene business is very exciting, but we've been doing it a while and we're trying to diversify from it and establish some new directions," he said.
Speaking at a Nobel news conference via telephone, Geim said he had not expected the prize and would try not to let the news change his routine. "My plan for today is to go to work and finish up a paper that I didn't finish this week," he said. "I just try to muddle on as before."
In previous work, Geim created a super-sticky tape inspired by geckos' feet and levitated a frog in a magnetic field, research that earned him one of the most prestigious spoof prizes in science: an Ig Nobel award.
"Playfulness is one of their hallmarks. With the building blocks they had at their disposal they attempted to create something new, sometimes even by just allowing their brains to meander aimlessly," the Nobel committee said in its press release.
Dame Nancy Rothwell, vice-chancellor of Manchester University, said: "This is a wonderful example of a fundamental discovery based on scientific curiosity with major practical, social and economic benefits for society."
Ton Peijs, professor of materials at Queen Mary, University of London, said: "Graphene can be visualised as an atomic-scale chicken wire made of carbon atoms and their bonds. Applications are foreseen in areas of biomedical and gas sensors, transparent conducting materials, for example for touchscreens or flexible displays, and as a reinforcement or conducting filler in composite materials.
"Similar to another important nanomaterial, carbon nanotubes, graphene is incredibly strong – around 200 times stronger than structural steel – but it may also form a stronger interaction when embedded in a polymer as the graphene sheet has considerably more contact area with the polymer material than the hollow carbon nanotubes."
Coppied by http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/oct/05/nobel-prize-physics
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