2010 Nobel Prize in Physics

The 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov. The prize was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on 5 October 2010.

The citation

The citation reads: "for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene". They share the prize equally.

The laureates

Andre Geim was born in 1958 in Sochi, Russia, and is affiliated with the University of Manchester, Manchester. Konstantin Novoselov was born in 1974 in Nizhny Tagil, Russia, and is affiliated with the University of Manchester, Manchester.

Why it matters

Graphene is a sheet of carbon just one atom thick, stronger than steel and an excellent conductor. Geim and Novoselov first isolated it in 2004 at the University of Manchester, using sticky tape to peel layers from graphite.

The prize

The prize is worth 10 million Swedish kronor, divided between the laureates. It will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895.