Nobel prize for physics goes to Manchester University scientists
Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov utilised a block of carbon and some Scotch tape to create graphene, a brand new material with extraordinary attributes
Nobel prize for physics winners Konstantin Novoselov (left) and Andre Geim Konstantin Novoselov (left) and Andre Geim of Manchester University have won the 2010 Nobel prize for physics, for generating graphene. Photograph: College of Manchester/EPA
Two scientists at Manchester University have won the 2010 Nobel prize for physics for generating the thinnest attainable flakes of carbon.
The news that Andre Geim, 51, and Konstantin Novoselov, 36, had received the 10m Swedish-kronor (£1m) prize was announced currently by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Novoselov is the youngest Nobel laureate because 1973.
Geim and Novoselov have been both born in Russia and collaborated as PhD supervisor and student in the Netherlands prior to moving to Manchester College, certainly one of Britain’s top physics institutes.
The scientists’ breakthrough came from a deceptively straightforward experiment in 2004 that involved a block of carbon and some Scotch tape. The two utilized the tape to strip off layers of carbon that were only 1 atom thick. These skinny wafers of carbon, known as graphene, have been identified to have extraordinary attributes.
Tests showed the graphene layers ended up being stretchy, as powerful as steel and nearly totally clear. Graphene is an exceptionally beneficial conductor of heat and electrical energy, properties that have manufactured it one of the most thrilling new materials for producing electronic components, from touchscreens to pollution sensors. The skinny wafers can also be applied to study a few of the additional peculiar effects of quantum mechanics.
Graphene consists of carbon atoms held together in the flat lattice like chicken wire. Drawing a pencil across a sheet of paper produces thin sheets of graphite, but Geim and Novoselov managed to come across a method to reliably separate these sheets into wafers only a single atom thick. You will find approximately three million sheets of graphene in the millimetre-thick layer of graphite.
Novoselov was chatting on-line to a buddy in Holland at 10am this morning when he heard of his award in a very telephone call from the Nobel committee. “It was really shocking. Every October a person speculates about this and you understand to not pay attention.”
Geim encouraged creative experiments at the laboratory, Novoselov explained. “We’d just strive crazy issues and sometimes they worked and at times not. Graphene was one in every of those that labored from the extremely beginning. It is such a robust content and all of the results were so pronounced,” reported Novoselov.
Despite winning the prize, Novoselov mentioned he was planning to function in other locations of physics and was thinking about taking a year or two sabbatical. “All this graphene business enterprise is quite exciting, but we’ve been carrying out it a while and we’re attempting to diversify from it and establish some new directions,” he explained.
Speaking at a Nobel news conference by way of telephone, Geim explained he had not expected the prize and would try to not let the news alter his routine. “My plan for right now is to go to work and finish up a paper that I did not finish this week,” he explained. “I just attempt to muddle on as prior to.”
In previous perform, Geim created a super-sticky tape inspired by geckos’ feet and levitated a frog within a magnetic field, analysis that earned him one of the most prestigious spoof prizes in science: an Ig Nobel award.
“Playfulness is one among their hallmarks. With all the constructing blocks they had at their disposal they attempted to create some thing new, occasionally even by just allowing their brains to meander aimlessly,” the Nobel committee reported in its press release.
Dame Nancy Rothwell, vice-chancellor of Manchester College, said: “This is often a great illustration of a basic discovery based on scientific curiosity with key practical, social and economic benefits for society.”
Ton Peijs, professor of components at Queen Mary, College of London, mentioned: “Graphene might be visualised as an atomic-scale chicken wire built of carbon atoms and their bonds. Applications are foreseen in parts of biomedical and gas sensors, clear conducting materials, for example for touchscreens or flexible displays, and as a reinforcement or conducting filler in composite products.
“Similar to one more critical nanomaterial, carbon nanotubes, graphene is incredibly robust – around 200 times more powerful than structural steel – however it may possibly also form a more powerful interaction when embedded in a very polymer as the graphene sheet has considerably more contact area using the polymer substance than the hollow carbon nanotubes.”
