Two Manchester University professors, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, both of Russian origin, were Tuesday awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for their “for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene”, described as the world’s thinnest material.
The two scientists will equally share the 10 million Swedish kroner prize money.
Graphene is the thinnest and the strongest form of carbon and is a good a conductor of electricity like copper. It makes experiments possible that give new twists to the phenomena in quantum physics. It could lead to creation of new materials and the manufacture of innovative electronics, potential successor to silicon, the Nobel Foundation said, including transparent touch screens, light panels, and even solar cells. Prof. Novoselov, a 36-year-old naturalised British citizen, who is better known as Kostya, has worked with 51-year-old Prof. Geim, a Dutch citizen, since his doctoral studies in the Netherlands. He followed Prof. Geim to Britain and both of them discovered graphene in 2004 at Manchester University.