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Nobel prizewinners: playing with pencils and Scotch tape
OPINION INTERVIEW
The fun way to win a Nobel prize Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, winners of this year’s physics Nobel, spoke to Michael Brooks about the enjoyment and frustrations of their work, and the prospects for graphene, the wonder material that brought them global fame
You included a hamster as co-author on one of your papers and made frogs levitate. You made graphene by playing with Scotch tape and pencil leads. It’s not an approach that normally leads to a Nobel prize.
Andre Geim: A playful attitude has always been the hallmark of my research, but even the flying frog was a serious experiment at the start. Fun actually plays quite a minor part, but it certainly helps. Without it you would consider your job a burden. But you also have to do things no one else is doing. Unless you happen to be in the right place at the right time, or you have facilities that no one else has, the only way is to
“Samsung’s industrial road map for graphene shows 50 different applications” be more adventurous. There are some people around who specifically aim for a Nobel, but that’s the hallmark of a megalomaniac. Konstantin Novoselov: If you try to win the Nobel you won’t. The only way is to enjoy doing your work. For a long time we didn’t use any technology, just some pieces of graphite coated with silver paint. We started to get results that indicated graphite might operate as transistors and have other useful properties. But yes, the way we were working really was quite playful.
patting me on the back and saying “you’ll do it – just stay alive”. KN: There were rumours going round for a few years that a prize would be given for graphene. It was quite damaging, actually. I trained myself not to listen, otherwise you just keep thinking about it and it takes your mind away from what you’re doing. What makes graphene so special?
AG: It is a two-dimensional lattice of carbon atoms which is stronger and stiffer than diamond, yet can be stretched and is impermeable to gases and liquids. So many of those properties are things that no other material has. It is so remarkable and so amazing. Graphene is turning out to be a wonder material. What made you leave Russia, the country where you were born and educated?
AG: In the late 1980s it was very hard to do any research in the Soviet Union. Most of the research was military, and the facilities were not competitive compared with what you could get in the west. Then in the early 1990s, as the Soviet Union collapsed, everything went from bad to worse and it was impossible to do any work at all. I went for six months to the University of Nottingham in the UK. It was the first time I had spent any length of time abroad, and in that time I managed to do work that would have taken 20 to 30 years in Russia.
When did you realise you had done enough to win the Nobel prize?
Is there any hope for Russian science?
AG: I guess I started thinking seriously about the Nobel prize in 2008, when the citations started piling up and people were
AG: The country is rich in natural resources, including oil and gas, so there is a bit of investment in science. But the old gremlins –
32 | NewScientist | 20 November 2010
endemic corruption, for instance – are still hanging around. Education is probably the strongest part of the Russian system. That’s because it was cheaper to sustain and a little bit harder to demolish. I noticed a dip in quality in the 1990s, but education is strong again now. That is the major source of hope for Russia. Would you go back?
AG: Oh no. Firstly, I’m not a Russian citizen. I like Russia, I still miss the place where I was born, but for me work is part of life. If I went back I would spend my time fighting with bureaucracy, tilting at windmills. KN: There are a few things about how science is organised there which makes it unattractive for science. Without change I don’t think I’d be tempted to go back. Is your work affected by the economic climate?
KN: As far as money goes, we’re fine at the moment. There has been one upside to the
For more interviews and to add your comments, visit www.NewScientist.com/opinion
For Geim (left) and Novoselov, winning a Nobel prize has turned professional life upside down
how many you got any royalties from. It’s so easy to file a patent, but it costs a lot, and it’s hard to get any royalties out of them. You are physicists, but you have started doing chemistry with graphene. Will the next graphene Nobel prize be for chemistry?
KN: We were extremely disappointed not to get the chemistry prize this year on top of the physics one. When the announcement was due I was already shaved and sitting next to the phone! Seriously, though, the chemists are teaching us a lot. I try to keep track, but I think I know about less than half of what is out there. AG: It’s hard to understand just how big graphene is. I usually move subject every five years. But graphene is such a huge area that I have already moved at least three times: from the electronics to chemistry to the structural properties.
AP Photo/Jon Super
What is the future for graphene?
economic crisis. Usually a huge fraction of our physics graduates go to work in banks and finance markets. This year we have had plenty come into the lab because the banks are not hiring. AG: I told [UK science minister] David Willetts that I compare graphene’s Nobel prize to the first glass of wine from a new vineyard. Thanks to the investment by [former UK science minister] Lord Sainsbury we have grown the Profile Andre Geim was born in Sochi, Russia, in 1958, and obtained his PhD from the Institute of Solid State Physics in Chernogolovka. Now a Dutch citizen, he heads the mesoscopic physics group at the University of Manchester, UK Konstantin Novoselov was born in 1974 in Nizhny Tagil, Russia. He has a PhD from the University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands, and is now at the University of Manchester
vines, bringing UK science up to the same level as the rest of the world. But it took 10 to 15 years: for a man with a sharp axe it would take only an hour to destroy the whole vineyard. The damage done in a year would take several decades to recover from. You didn’t patent graphene, saying it would be indefensible and a waste of taxpayers’ money. Do you still think you did the right thing?
KN: If we had tried to delay the paper [in order to apply for a patent] and hide some of the details of how to prepare it, it wouldn’t have taken off like it did. The results were reproduced the very next day in labs across the world. In New York, Philip Kim of Columbia University read our paper, picked up some Scotch tape on the way into work the next day, and made graphene samples as soon as he got in. AG: Very few people understand the problem with patents. If I was in government, I’d be asking not how many patents you’ve got, but
AG: I’ve seen a huge industrial road map compiled by Samsung researchers which has something like 50 different applications. I’m optimistic that some of these – touchscreens, transistors and sensors – might come online in the next 10 years. KN: People are very optimistic. I’ve already underestimated the research several times: I’ve laughed at proposals pushed forward by industrial labs that went on to succeed. I think in terms of finding new physics we’re only at the beginning. Every single property of graphene – optical, mechanical, electronic – is really unusual. Plus, you can combine them into electromechanical and electro-optical devices. The best experiments are only just starting now. Will you be a part of this future, or will the Nobel prize sap your ambition?
AG: I’m a newly cooked winner so I can’t judge what will happen in the long term. At the moment it’s a nightmare – it’s completely detrimental to my research. I have papers to write, there are people who depend on me for things no one else can do. But I’m not getting anything done. I try to pretend for a few hours that things are normal, but it’s just a pretence. KN: I sincerely hope I will carry on. But I can’t predict the future, and I’m aware that many Nobel prizewinners didn’t manage to carry on. It will be tough, but I hope I’ll do active research for many years to come. n 20 November 2010 | NewScientist | 33
The fun way to win a Nobel prize Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, winners of this year’s physics Nobel, spoke to Michael Brooks about the enjoyment and frustrations of their work, and the prospects for graphene, the wonder material that brought them global fame
You included a hamster as co-author on one of your papers and made frogs levitate. You made graphene by playing with Scotch tape and pencil leads. It’s not an approach that normally leads to a Nobel prize.
Andre Geim: A playful attitude has always been the hallmark of my research, but even the flying frog was a serious experiment at the start. Fun actually plays quite a minor part, but it certainly helps. Without it you would consider your job a burden. But you also have to do things no one else is doing. Unless you happen to be in the right place at the right time, or you have facilities that no one else has, the only way is to
“Samsung’s industrial road map for graphene shows 50 different applications” be more adventurous. There are some people around who specifically aim for a Nobel, but that’s the hallmark of a megalomaniac. Konstantin Novoselov: If you try to win the Nobel you won’t. The only way is to enjoy doing your work. For a long time we didn’t use any technology, just some pieces of graphite coated with silver paint. We started to get results that indicated graphite might operate as transistors and have other useful properties. But yes, the way we were working really was quite playful.
patting me on the back and saying “you’ll do it – just stay alive”. KN: There were rumours going round for a few years that a prize would be given for graphene. It was quite damaging, actually. I trained myself not to listen, otherwise you just keep thinking about it and it takes your mind away from what you’re doing. What makes graphene so special?
AG: It is a two-dimensional lattice of carbon atoms which is stronger and stiffer than diamond, yet can be stretched and is impermeable to gases and liquids. So many of those properties are things that no other material has. It is so remarkable and so amazing. Graphene is turning out to be a wonder material. What made you leave Russia, the country where you were born and educated?
AG: In the late 1980s it was very hard to do any research in the Soviet Union. Most of the research was military, and the facilities were not competitive compared with what you could get in the west. Then in the early 1990s, as the Soviet Union collapsed, everything went from bad to worse and it was impossible to do any work at all. I went for six months to the University of Nottingham in the UK. It was the first time I had spent any length of time abroad, and in that time I managed to do work that would have taken 20 to 30 years in Russia.
When did you realise you had done enough to win the Nobel prize?
Is there any hope for Russian science?
AG: I guess I started thinking seriously about the Nobel prize in 2008, when the citations started piling up and people were
AG: The country is rich in natural resources, including oil and gas, so there is a bit of investment in science. But the old gremlins –
32 | NewScientist | 20 November 2010
endemic corruption, for instance – are still hanging around. Education is probably the strongest part of the Russian system. That’s because it was cheaper to sustain and a little bit harder to demolish. I noticed a dip in quality in the 1990s, but education is strong again now. That is the major source of hope for Russia. Would you go back?
AG: Oh no. Firstly, I’m not a Russian citizen. I like Russia, I still miss the place where I was born, but for me work is part of life. If I went back I would spend my time fighting with bureaucracy, tilting at windmills. KN: There are a few things about how science is organised there which makes it unattractive for science. Without change I don’t think I’d be tempted to go back. Is your work affected by the economic climate?
KN: As far as money goes, we’re fine at the moment. There has been one upside to the
For more interviews and to add your comments, visit www.NewScientist.com/opinion
For Geim (left) and Novoselov, winning a Nobel prize has turned professional life upside down
how many you got any royalties from. It’s so easy to file a patent, but it costs a lot, and it’s hard to get any royalties out of them. You are physicists, but you have started doing chemistry with graphene. Will the next graphene Nobel prize be for chemistry?
KN: We were extremely disappointed not to get the chemistry prize this year on top of the physics one. When the announcement was due I was already shaved and sitting next to the phone! Seriously, though, the chemists are teaching us a lot. I try to keep track, but I think I know about less than half of what is out there. AG: It’s hard to understand just how big graphene is. I usually move subject every five years. But graphene is such a huge area that I have already moved at least three times: from the electronics to chemistry to the structural properties.
AP Photo/Jon Super
What is the future for graphene?
economic crisis. Usually a huge fraction of our physics graduates go to work in banks and finance markets. This year we have had plenty come into the lab because the banks are not hiring. AG: I told [UK science minister] David Willetts that I compare graphene’s Nobel prize to the first glass of wine from a new vineyard. Thanks to the investment by [former UK science minister] Lord Sainsbury we have grown the Profile Andre Geim was born in Sochi, Russia, in 1958, and obtained his PhD from the Institute of Solid State Physics in Chernogolovka. Now a Dutch citizen, he heads the mesoscopic physics group at the University of Manchester, UK Konstantin Novoselov was born in 1974 in Nizhny Tagil, Russia. He has a PhD from the University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands, and is now at the University of Manchester
vines, bringing UK science up to the same level as the rest of the world. But it took 10 to 15 years: for a man with a sharp axe it would take only an hour to destroy the whole vineyard. The damage done in a year would take several decades to recover from. You didn’t patent graphene, saying it would be indefensible and a waste of taxpayers’ money. Do you still think you did the right thing?
KN: If we had tried to delay the paper [in order to apply for a patent] and hide some of the details of how to prepare it, it wouldn’t have taken off like it did. The results were reproduced the very next day in labs across the world. In New York, Philip Kim of Columbia University read our paper, picked up some Scotch tape on the way into work the next day, and made graphene samples as soon as he got in. AG: Very few people understand the problem with patents. If I was in government, I’d be asking not how many patents you’ve got, but
AG: I’ve seen a huge industrial road map compiled by Samsung researchers which has something like 50 different applications. I’m optimistic that some of these – touchscreens, transistors and sensors – might come online in the next 10 years. KN: People are very optimistic. I’ve already underestimated the research several times: I’ve laughed at proposals pushed forward by industrial labs that went on to succeed. I think in terms of finding new physics we’re only at the beginning. Every single property of graphene – optical, mechanical, electronic – is really unusual. Plus, you can combine them into electromechanical and electro-optical devices. The best experiments are only just starting now. Will you be a part of this future, or will the Nobel prize sap your ambition?
AG: I’m a newly cooked winner so I can’t judge what will happen in the long term. At the moment it’s a nightmare – it’s completely detrimental to my research. I have papers to write, there are people who depend on me for things no one else can do. But I’m not getting anything done. I try to pretend for a few hours that things are normal, but it’s just a pretence. KN: I sincerely hope I will carry on. But I can’t predict the future, and I’m aware that many Nobel prizewinners didn’t manage to carry on. It will be tough, but I hope I’ll do active research for many years to come. n 20 November 2010 | NewScientist | 33