Nobel Prize for physics goes to Manchester University scientists (for creating Graphene)

The Guardian ^ | 10/05/2010 | Ian Sample

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wo 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.

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RE: Possible applications include the creation of graphene transistors that could become much faster than today’s silicon ones and give rise to more efficient computers.

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I can already see modern cities replacing Silicon Valley. How does Graphene Valley sound ?

[onedoug]

¨Thanks, King.¨ —Richard Feynman on receiving his Nobel