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Short Sharp Science: A New Scientist blog

Physicists win Nobel using sticky tape and pencil


Kate McAlpine, reporter

You may first have heard of Andre Geim in the late 1990s when he was part of a team that levitated live frogs in mid-air (video demonstration) using giant magnetic fields, a feat that led to an Ig Nobel prize in 2000.

Now, together with his colleague Konstantin Novoselov, he has garnered the Nobel Prize in physics for a totally different achievement: the discovery of an exotic, potentially revolutionary form of carbon known as graphene.

It turns out that these atom-thick sheets of graphite are produced every time you put humble pencil to paper. But that wasn't known until 2004, when Geim and Novoselov, both of of the University of Manchester, UK, first used sticky tape to pull tiny sheets of carbon off a piece of graphite. Previously, two-dimensional carbon sheets weren't thought to be stable.

In some ways, it may be seen as an unusual choice: Nobel laureates often aren't recognised until decades after their original discovery.

In the last six years, however, the material has been shown to have some remarkable properties. It is super strong, and its elasticity made it viable for use as the membrane in the world's smallest balloon. Most recently, it turns out that a piece of levitating graphene can spin faster than any other macroscopic object, thanks to its incredible strength.

Potentially most exciting are its exotic electronic properties. As graphene allows electrons to travel through it as though they were weightless, it promises faster electronics. Graphene circuits can even be drawn on to a base. Since their initial discovery, Geim and Novoselov have continued to pave the way for a graphene computing revolution.

Larger sheets have already been made into a touchscreen, and graphene has also been suggested as a component of solar cells.

Its debut may have been on the tip of an old-fashioned pencil, but graphene, it seems, is destined to play an important role in our future.

Meanwhile, Improbable Research of Cambridge, Massachusetts, which awards the Ig Nobel prizes, notes that Geim is the first individual to win both a Nobel and Ig Nobel prize.

Update: This story was updated to include the fact that Andre Geim won an Ig Nobel prize in 2000.

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I think I can safely say that this is a point in history on par with silicon, steel, iron, bronze, flint and fire. Its use in far more ways than just structural and its more than common availability will lead to many things not even thought of, but its techniques taken from Nanotube technology, and the hybridisation between them that are the unknown, never mind those technologies currently called impossible, even though hints exist in various research labs around the world.

It will be intresting to see how long it is before the first laser launched graphene solar sail goes screaming through the heliopause, carrying its integrated sensors, logic and comunications built into its very structure. Maybe an X Prize for 2030? After all, if its almost impossible, its worth doing.


Levitated live frogs using strong magnetic fields. Surely that proves that there is a link between electromagnetism and gravity, which is what the Theory of Everything is about.


Maybe I missed something in high school science, but I thought atoms were a three dimensional item.
I'm certainly no physicist, but if graphene is a one atom thick sheet, then surely it's still three dimensional?


Why not combine the two.
The worlds most rapidly rotating ballon. Will it degenerate into funny shapes and tell us about the spawning of other universes?
And scoop the next ignobel.


@Sean: "that proves that there is a link between electromagnetism and gravity". No, its just magnetism.

@Terry: it is two dimensional in the sense that all the carbon atoms are bonded in a 2D lattice (ie no bonds between layers), not that it has zero thickness.


was actually looking around for a blog post on this issue, but stumbled across your site on Google!! I't actually quite interested so will keep an eye out for updates


I can't believe he picked a Ward first???

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