nanoREV.

Know Graphene’s maker

Since 1999, MIT’s very own publication — Technology Review — has highlighted a list of top innovators under the age of 35 aptly named TR35. While the list may be biased, containing only works that the editors find “exciting”, the just released “TR35″ for 2008 includes a familiar name–Dr. Kostya Novoselov.

As mentioned in a previous post here on nanoREV, researchers (including Novoselov) at the University of Manchester under the supervision of Professor Andre Geim were able to show that the intrinsic mobility of graphene may potentially have a value of about 200,000 cm2/V-s. In fact, as highlighted in the TR35 list, Dr. Novoselov discovered the simple method for isolating single, carbon atom-thick sheets of graphene back in 2004 (watch a video of the siple process here) . His discovery has even paved the way to the first graphene based transistor.

While it may prove in the long run that single-graphene based transistors may be impractical–prone to electronic interactions with the substrate — configurational work-arounds have shown promising results. For his work, which has been highlighted in prestigious academic publications such as Nature Materials, Science and even newsstand publication Scientific American, Dr. Novoselov has made a name for himself in the realm of next-generation electronics. We’ll go ahead and file this one next to Sumio Iijima and Richard Smalley.