Biography of the game of Andrei Konstantinovich. Nobel laureate Andrei Geim: Science is not a hundred meters, it is a marathon for life Andrey Geim Nobel Prize
) - Russian physicist, member of the Royal Society of London (2007), winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics (2010) for experiments with two-dimensional material graphene, professor at the University of Manchester.
Andrei Geim was born into a family of Russified Germans, his parents were engineers. Andrei grew up in Nalchik, where his father worked since 1964 as the chief engineer of the Nalchik Electrovacuum Plant. In 1975, Andrey Geim graduated from high school with a gold medal and tried to enter the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, which trained personnel for the nuclear industry of the USSR. Non-Russian origin did not allow him to become a student at MEPhI, Andrei returned to Nalchik, worked at his father's factory. In 1976 he entered the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology at the Faculty of General and Applied Physics. After graduating with honors from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (1982), Geim was admitted to graduate school, in 1987 he received a PhD in physics and mathematics. He worked as a researcher at the Institute of Solid State Physics of the USSR Academy of Sciences (Chernogolovka, Moscow region), went abroad in 1990, became a professor at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands in 1994, and received Dutch citizenship. Since 2001 A.K. Game settled in the UK, became a professor at the University of Manchester, head of the condensed matter physics group.
The main direction of scientific research of the scientist was the properties of solids, in particular, diamagnets. He gained fame for his experiments on diamagnetic levitation. For example, the experiment with the "flying frog" was awarded in 2000 with the Ig Nobel Prize - a comic analogue of the Nobel Prize, awarded annually for the most useless achievements of scientists. Nevertheless, Geim's scientific authority was very high; he became one of the most cited physicists in the world. In 2004 A.K. Game and his student, Konstantin Novoselov, published an article in the journal Science, where they described experiments with a new material - graphene, which is a monatomic layer of carbon. In the course of further research, it was found that graphene has a number of unique properties: increased strength, high electrical and thermal conductivity, transparent to light, but at the same time dense enough not to miss helium molecules - the smallest known molecules. This discovery was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2010.
In 2011, Queen Elizabeth granted Game a knight bachelor and the title "sir". In the same year he received the Niels Bohr medal for outstanding achievements in physics.
On May 28, 2013, Andrey Geim arrived in Moscow at the invitation of the Minister of Education and Science Dmitry Livanov and accepted the offer to become an honorary co-chair of the Public Council of the Ministry of Education and Science. At the end of June, he supported the bill on the reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences ().
Sir Andrei Konstantinovich Game is a Fellow of the Royal Society, fellow and British-Dutch physicist, born in Russia. Together with Konstantin Novoselov, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 for his work on graphene. He is currently Regius Professor and Director of the Center for Meso-Science and Nanotechnology at the University of Manchester.
Andrey Geim: biography
Born on October 21, 1958 in the family of Konstantin Alekseevich Geim and Nina Nikolaevna Bayer. His parents were Soviet engineers of German origin. According to Geim, his mother's grandmother was Jewish and he suffered from anti-Semitism because his last name sounds Jewish. Game has a brother Vladislav. In 1965 his family moved to Nalchik, where he studied at a school specializing in English. After graduating with honors, he twice tried to enter MEPhI, but was not accepted. Then he applied to the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and this time he managed to enter. According to him, the students studied very hard - the pressure was so strong that often people broke down and left their studies, and some ended up with depression, schizophrenia and suicide.
Academic career
Andrey Geim received his diploma in 1982, and in 1987 he became a PhD in the field of metal physics at the Institute of Solid State Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Chernogolovka. According to the scientist, at that time he did not want to engage in this direction, preferring elementary particle physics or astrophysics, but today he is satisfied with his choice.
Geim worked as a researcher at the Institute of Microelectronics Technology at the Russian Academy of Sciences, and since 1990 - at the Universities of Nottingham (twice), Bath and Copenhagen. According to him, he could do research abroad, and not deal with politics, which is why he decided to leave the USSR.
Jobs in the Netherlands
Andrey Geim took his first full-time position in 1994, when he became an assistant professor at the University of Nijmegen, where he studied mesoscopic superconductivity. He later received Dutch citizenship. One of his graduate students was Konstantin Novoselov, who became his main research partner. However, according to Geim, his academic career in the Netherlands was far from rosy. He was offered professorships at Nijmegen and Eindhoven, but he turned it down because he found the Dutch academic system too hierarchical and full of petty politicking, it is completely different from the British one, where every employee is equal in rights. In his Nobel lecture, Game later said that this situation was a bit surreal, since outside the walls of the university he was warmly welcomed everywhere, including his supervisor and other scientists.
Moving to the UK
In 2001, Game became Professor of Physics at the University of Manchester, and in 2002 he was appointed Director of the Manchester Center for Meso-Science and Nanotechnology and Langworthy Professor. His wife and longtime collaborator Irina Grigorieva also moved to Manchester as a teacher. Later Konstantin Novoselov joined them. Since 2007, Game has been a Senior Fellow at the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council. In 2010, the University of Nijmegen appointed him Professor of Innovative Materials and Nanoscience.
Research
Geim managed to find a simple way to isolate a single layer of graphite atoms, known as graphene, in collaboration with scientists from the University of Manchester and IMT. In October 2004, the group published their findings in the journal Science.
Graphene consists of a layer of carbon, the atoms of which are arranged in the form of two-dimensional hexagons. It is the thinnest material in the world, as well as one of the strongest and hardest. The substance has many potential uses and is an excellent alternative to silicon. One of the first uses for graphene could be the development of flexible touchscreens, Geim says. He did not patent the new material because it would require a specific application and an industrial partner to do so.
The physicist was developing a biomimetic adhesive that became known as gecko tape due to the stickiness of the gecko's limbs. These studies are still in their early stages, but already give hope that in the future people will be able to climb ceilings like Spider-Man.
In 1997, Game studied the effects of magnetism on water, leading to the famous discovery of direct diamagnetic levitation of water, which was made famous by the demonstration of a levitating frog. He also worked on superconductivity and mesoscopic physics.
On the choice of subjects for his research, Game said he despises the approach of many choosing a subject for their Ph.D. and then continuing on the same subject until retirement. Before he got his first full-time position, he changed his subject five times, and this helped him learn a lot.
The history of the discovery of graphene
One autumn evening in 2002 Andrey Geim was thinking about carbon. He specialized in microscopically thin materials and wondered how the thinnest layers of matter could behave under certain experimental conditions. Graphite, composed of monatomic films, was an obvious candidate for research, but standard methods for isolating ultrathin samples would overheat and destroy it. So Game instructed one of the new graduate students, Da Jiang, to try to make a sample as thin as possible, even a few hundred layers of atoms, by polishing a graphite crystal one inch in size. A few weeks later, Jiang brought a grain of carbon in a petri dish. After examining it under a microscope, Game asked him to try again. Jiang said that this was all that was left of the crystal. While Game jokingly reproached him for a graduate student who had rubbed off a mountain to get a grain of sand, one of his senior comrades saw lumps of used tape in the wastebasket, the sticky side of which was covered with a gray, slightly shiny film of graphite residue.
In labs around the world, researchers use tape to test the adhesive properties of experimental samples. The layers of carbon that make up graphite are loosely bonded (since 1564 the material has been used in pencils, as it leaves a visible mark on paper), so that the adhesive tape easily separates the scales. Game placed a piece of duct tape under a microscope and found that the thickness of the graphite was thinner than what he had seen so far. By folding, squeezing and separating the tape, he managed to achieve even thinner layers.
Game was the first to isolate a two-dimensional material: a monatomic layer of carbon, which under an atomic microscope looks like a flat lattice of hexagons, reminiscent of a honeycomb. Theoretical physicists called such a substance graphene, but they did not assume that it could be obtained at room temperature. It seemed to them that the material would disintegrate into microscopic balls. Instead, Game saw that the graphene remained in a single plane, which rippled as the matter stabilized.
Graphene: Remarkable Properties
Andrei Geim enlisted the help of graduate student Konstantin Novoselov, and they began to study the new substance fourteen hours a day. Over the next two years, they conducted a series of experiments, during which they discovered the amazing properties of the material. Because of its unique structure, electrons, without being influenced by other layers, can move through the lattice unhindered and unusually fast. The conductivity of graphene is thousands of times greater than that of copper. Game's first revelation was the observation of a pronounced "field effect" that occurs in the presence of an electric field, which allows control of conduction. This effect is one of the defining characteristics of silicon used in computer chips. This suggests that graphene could be a replacement that computer manufacturers have been looking for for years.
The path to recognition
Geim and Konstantin Novoselov wrote a three-page paper describing their discoveries. It was rejected twice by Nature, with one reviewer stating that isolating a stable two-dimensional material was impossible, and another not seeing "sufficient scientific progress" in it. But in October 2004, an article entitled "Electric Field Effect in Atomically Thick Carbon Films" was published in the journal Science, making a great impression on scientists - before their eyes, fantasy became reality.
Avalanche of discoveries
Laboratories around the world have begun research using Geim's adhesive tape technique, and scientists have identified other properties of graphene. Although it was the thinnest material in the universe, it was 150 times stronger than steel. Graphene proved to be malleable, like rubber, and could stretch up to 120% of its length. Thanks to the research of Philip Kim, and then scientists at Columbia University, it was found that this material is even more electrically conductive than previously found. Kim put graphene in a vacuum where no other material could slow down the movement of its subatomic particles, and showed that it has "mobility" - the speed at which an electric charge travels through a semiconductor - 250 times faster than silicon.
Technology Race
In 2010, six years after the discovery made by Andrey Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, the Nobel Prize was awarded to them after all. At that time, the media called graphene a "wonder material", a substance that "could change the world." He was approached by academic researchers in the fields of physics, electrical engineering, medicine, chemistry, etc. Patents were issued for the use of graphene in batteries, water desalination systems, advanced solar batteries, ultra-fast microcomputers.
Scientists in China have created the world's lightest material - graphene airgel. It is 7 times lighter than air - one cubic meter of matter weighs only 160 g. Graphene airgel is created by freezing a gel containing graphene and nanotubes.
At the University of Manchester, where Game and Novoselov work, the British government has invested $60 million to create the National Graphene Institute on its basis, which would allow the country to be on a par with the world's best patent holders - Korea, China and the United States, which began the race to create the first in the world of revolutionary products based on new material.
Honorary titles and awards
An experiment with magnetic levitation of a live frog did not bring quite the result that Michael Berry and Andrey Game expected. The Ig Nobel Prize was awarded to them in 2000.
In 2006, Game received the Scientific American 50 award.
In 2007, the Institute of Physics awarded him the Mott Prize and Medal. Then Game was elected a member of the Royal Society.
Game and Novoselov shared the 2008 Europhysics Prize "for the discovery and isolation of the monatomic layer of carbon and the determination of its remarkable electronic properties." In 2009, he received the Kerber Award.
The Andre Geim John Carthy Award, which he was awarded by the US National Academy of Sciences in 2010, was given "for his experimental implementation and study of graphene, a two-dimensional form of carbon."
Also in 2010, he received one of the six honorary professorships of the Royal Society and the Hughes Medal "for the revolutionary discovery of graphene and the identification of its remarkable properties." Game has been awarded honorary doctorates from Delft University of Technology, ETH Zurich, the Universities of Antwerp and Manchester.
In 2010 he was made a Commander of the Order of the Netherlands Lion for his contribution to Dutch science. In 2012, for services to science, Game was promoted to bachelor knights. He was elected a Foreign Corresponding Member of the United States Academy of Sciences in May 2012.
Nobel Laureate
Geim and Novoselov were awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics for their pioneering work on graphene. Hearing about the award, Geim said he did not expect to receive it this year and was not going to change his immediate plans for this. A modern physicist has expressed the hope that graphene and other two-dimensional crystals will change the daily life of mankind in the same way that plastic did. The award made him the first person to win both the Nobel Prize and the Ig Nobel Prize at the same time. The lecture took place on December 8, 2010 at Stockholm University.
In 2010 Andrey Geim won the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of graphene. Since then, wonder material - this is the name that has been assigned to graphene in English-language literature - has become a really hot topic. Today, Game's research team at the University of Manchester continues to explore 2D materials and make new discoveries. The scientist presented the latest results of his work and prospects in the field of research of 2D heterostructures at the METANANO-2018 conference in Sochi. And in an interview for the ITMO University news portal ITMO.NEWS and the MIPT corporate magazine For Science, he talked about why you shouldn’t be engaged in the same scientific field all your life, what motivates young scientists to go into fundamental science and why researchers You need to learn how to present the results of your work as clearly as possible.
Andrew Game. Photos provided by the Faculty of Physics and Technology of ITMO University
During your presentation, you spoke about the latest results and prospects for the study of two-dimensional materials. But if you go back, what exactly brought you to this field and what key research are you doing now?
At the conference, I presented a report in which I named what I am currently doing - graphene 3.0, since graphene is the first herald of a new class of materials in which, roughly speaking, there is no thickness. You can't do anything thinner than one atom. Graphene became a kind of snowball that caused an avalanche.
This area has developed step by step. Today, people are engaged in two-dimensional materials, which we have known for more than a decade, here we were also pioneers. And after that it became interesting how to stack these materials on top of each other - I called it graphene 2.0.
We are still dealing with thin materials. But in the last few years, I've jumped a bit away from my specialty, which is quantum physics, especially the electrical properties of solids. Now I'm working on molecular transport. Instead of graphene, we have learned how to make empty space, anti-graphene, “two-dimensional nothing,” if you like. Studying the properties of cavities, how they allow molecules to flow, and so on - this has never been done before, this is a new experimental system. And there are already many interesting studies that we have published. But you need to develop this area and see how the properties of, for example, water change, if you set restrictions ( In particular, study results were published a few months ago in the journal Science, you can also read about the work - ed.).
These questions are not idle, since all life is made of water and it has always been believed that water is the most polarizable material known. But we found that near the surface, the water completely loses its polarization. And this work has many applications for a large number of completely different areas - not only physics, but also biology and so on.
In one of interview You said that the history of the 20th century shows that, as a rule, it takes 20 to 40 years for new materials or new drugs to go from an academic laboratory to their launch into mass production. Is this statement true for graphene? On the one hand, there is a lot of news about its use, on the other hand, it is probably too early to talk about its massive use in everyday life.
See for yourself: all our materials that we used until recently were characterized by height, length, width - such attributes. And now, after 10 thousand years of civilization, suddenly we have found material - and not one, but dozens - that are radically different from the Stone, Iron, Bronze, Silicon Ages and so on. This is a new class of materials. And this, of course, is not software where you can write a program and become a millionaire in a few years. People will soon think that the telephone was invented by Steve Jobs and the computer by Bill Gates. In fact, this is the work of 70 years, condensed matter physics. At first, people figured out how silicon and germanium work, then they started making switches, and so on.
And if we return to what is happening with graphene, hundreds of companies are already making a profit on this in China. This is the data that I know. Products using graphene can be seen anywhere: they make shoe soles, paint with various fillers for protection, and much more. It's slowly, but unwinding. Although slowly on the scale of the industry. Since 2010, they have learned how to make graphene in bulk, and not like us - under a microscope. So give it time. In ten years, you will probably see not only skis and tennis rackets, which are called graphene, but something truly revolutionary, unique.
How is the work in your scientific group being built now?
The style of work is not to be locked in the same direction, as I usually say, from the scientific cradle to the scientific coffin. In the Soviet Union, at least, it was very popular: people defend their Ph.D., doctorate, and until retirement they do the same thing. Of course, professionalism is needed in any business, but at the same time, you need to look at what is on the sidelines. I am trying to switch from one direction to another: we have such conditions, but what else can be done in this area?
What I was talking about - this "two-dimensional nothing" - this idea came from a completely different area. For some reason, which only later became clear, it turned out to be a rather interesting new system. Therefore, you need to jump like a frog from one area to another, even if there is no knowledge, but there is a background. You can jump into a new area and see from your point of view what you can do there. And this is very important. It is especially good to do this with students who approach new topics with great enthusiasm.
There are many young scientists in your group today, including those from Russia. In your opinion, what motivates students today, both in Russia and abroad, to engage in science, including fundamental science? After all, even now the prospects in the same industry are more obvious.
People are trying their hand. Science is engaged in five or six million people in the world: someone tries, someone does not like it. Life in science, especially fundamental science, is not sweet. When you are a graduate student, you feel like you are doing science. And when you get a permanent job, then studies pile up, and you need to write grants, and attach articles to magazines, that’s still a hassle. Therefore, in comparison with the industry, where everything is a bit like in the army, it is different in science.
Survival is real, but you need to run very fast: this is not a hundred meters, this is a marathon for life. And you also need to learn all your life. Some people like it, like me. So much adrenaline every time! For example, when you open a referee report for your article. And the status of a Nobel laureate does not help. It works like this: “Ah, Nobel laureate? Let's teach him how to really do science." Therefore, in the evening, when I already have to go to bed, I never open the comments of reviewers.
There is enough adrenaline, everything is interesting, you learn something new all your life, so some young people, molded from the same dough, want to make their way in science. In my experience, the only truly successful scientists who have gone through me are those who started out as PhD students. If they come as postdocs, then it is already quite late to retrain, there is already pressure: you need to publish, find grants. And at the PhD level, you can still think about the soul. At this time in graduate school, they form a style of work: if they like it, they become quite successful.
Just touching on the topic of grants. Many scientists say that work in science is, among other things, quite a lot of routine, bureaucracy, and you constantly need to look for funding. When then do the research itself?
Money for science is given by taxpayers from their hard earned money. And what research to fund is decided by peers who are other scientists. Therefore, they need to prove to them, get used to high competition. Money, even if they are given a lot, is still not enough for everyone, so this is somehow an inevitable part of science: you need to write applications for grants, publish good articles. If the article is good, it will be cited. People vote with their feet, and in this case with a pen - which article to enter. The number of links indicates how successful you are, how much your colleagues respect your result. The competition in science is as strong as in sports, at the Olympic Games.
In Europe it's not as pronounced, but in America full professors in my position spend almost all of their time writing grants and talking to their students once a month. Most of my time is spent writing articles for my undergraduate and graduate students. Because when good results are presented poorly, the heart bleeds. Is it better than writing grants, or worse? Don't know.
Of course, the work must be well presented to the scientific community, but, on the other hand, the results of scientific research must be communicated to a wide range of people - those very taxpayers. Here I would like to touch on the topic of popularization of science: how much, in your opinion, do scientists themselves need to tell a large audience about their work?
And where to go? If the taxpayers do not understand, then the government ceases to understand. People still treat science with respect, especially people with education. If this were not the case, all the money would have been given away, as they say, for immediate needs - spent on bread and butter. And it would be like in Africa, where nothing is spent on science. As you know, this is a spiral, which eventually leads to the collapse of the economy. Therefore, I have great respect for people who know how and love to present the results of scientific research.
Among the professors I know, many with a smirk refer to those who appear on television and the like. For example, in our department works ( English physicist, engaged in particle physics, research fellow at the Royal Society of London, professor at the University of Manchester and a well-known popularizer of science - ed.). Even many are skeptical about him: they say that he is not a real professor, he did nothing in science. The fact that he is able to present the results of research is very important, someone should do it.
Winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics 2010
Laureate of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010, who discovered graphene together with Konstantin Novoselov. Langworthy Professor of Physics at the University of Manchester. A native of Russia, a citizen of the Netherlands.
Andrei Konstantinovich Geim was born on October 21, 1958 in Sochi,. His parents, Konstantin Alekseevich Game and Nina Nikolaevna Bayer, were engineers, by nationality - Volga Germans,,. From 1965 to 1975, Game lived and studied at School No. 3 in Nalchik, from which he graduated with a gold medal. After leaving school, he tried to enter the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MEPhI), but they refused to accept him there because of his nationality,. Therefore, he worked for one year as a mechanic at the Nalchik Electrovacuum Plant, of which his father was the chief engineer. , . In 1976, Game again received a refusal from MEPhI and entered the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), where he defended his diploma in 1982. After that, Geim began working as a graduate student at the Institute of Solid State Physics of the USSR Academy of Sciences (ISSP), where in 1987 he defended his Ph.D. problems of microelectronics and high-purity materials in Chernogolovka, created on the basis of the Institute of Solid State Physics,. In Chernolovka, Geim was engaged in metal physics, which, in his own words, quickly got tired of him.
In 1990, Game went to the UK for an internship at the University of Nottingham and no longer worked in the USSR and Russia. In 1992, he studied science at the University of Bath (University of Bath), from 1993 to 1994 he worked at the University of Copenhagen (University of Copenhagen). In 1994, Game became a researcher, and since 2000 - a professor at the University of Nijmegen (University of Nijmegen) in the Netherlands,. He received the citizenship of this country, renouncing the Russian one and correcting his name to Andre Geim,,. In parallel, from 1998 to 2000 Game was a special professor at the University of Nottingham,.
In 2000, Game, together with Michael Berry, received the Ig Nobel (anti-Nobel) Prize for an article in 1997, which described an experiment in the field of diamagnetic levitation - the co-authors achieved the levitation of a frog using a superconducting magnet,,,,,,. The press also noted that Game managed to create an adhesive tape that acts on the adhesion mechanisms of a gecko,,,, and in 2001 he included the hamster "Tisha" (H.A.M.S. ter Tisha) as a co-author of one article,.
In 2000, Game and his wife received an invitation to the University of Manchester and left the Netherlands a year later, leaving a negative review of the local scientific environment. He became professor of physics at the University of Manchester, a post he held until 2007. In 2002, he headed the department of condensed matter physics, as well as the Center for Mesoscopic Physics and Nanotechnology (Centre for Mesoscience & Nanotechnology) of this university. Since 2007, he has held the position of Langworthy Professor of Physics at the University of Manchester,,,,.
In 2004, Game, together with his student Konstantin Novoselov, discovered graphene - a two-dimensional layer of graphite one atom thick, which has good thermal conductivity, high mechanical rigidity and other useful properties,,. In 2007, for this discovery, Game was awarded the Mott Prize of the International Institute of Physics (Institute of Physics), and in 2009 became a professor at the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge. In 2010, Game was awarded the John J Carty Award from the US National Academy of Sciences and the Hughes Medal from the Royal Society of Great Britain.
In 2006, Scientific American included Geim in the list of the 50 most influential scientists in the world, and in 2008 Russian Newsweek named Geim one of the ten most talented Russian emigrant scientists. In total, by 2010, Game has published more than 180 scientific papers in peer-reviewed publications,.
In October 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for their seminal experiments with the two-dimensional material graphene".
After the news of the awarding of the Nobel Prize to immigrants from Russia, they were invited to work in Russia at the Skolkovo innovation center, but Game said in an interview that he was not going to return to his homeland: “Staying in Russia was the same as spending my life fighting against windmills, and work is a hobby for me, and I absolutely did not want to spend my life on mouse fuss", ,. Then he called himself in an interview "European and 20 percent Kabardino-Balkarian". Despite his reluctance to return to Russia, he noted the high quality of fundamental education at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology: in 2006, Game said that those parts of the brain that he had lost due to alcohol libations after exams at the institute were replaced by shares occupied by the information received at the institute which he never used. He also collaborated with the Institute of Solid State Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Chernogolovka, where they investigated the possibility of creating a graphene transistor.
The press noted that Game is not an ordinary scientist, but in essence is closer to an inventor: he often takes the first idea that comes across as a basis and tries to develop it, and sometimes something interesting comes out of this.
At the end of 2011, Game and Novoselov were awarded the title of Knights Bachelor by decree of the British Queen Elizabeth II,.
Game is married. His wife, Irina Grigoryeva, is Russian and has a Ph.D. and has also worked at the University of Manchester since 2000. They have a daughter, a citizen of the Netherlands,,. In his spare time, Game enjoys mountain climbing.
Used materials
New Year honors list: Knights. - Guardian.co.uk, 31.12.2011
Elena Pakhomova. Russian Nobel laureates were awarded the title of knight-bachelors. - RIA News, 31.01.2011
Nominated by user Aleksey
Place of Birth: Sochi
Family status: married to Irina Grigorieva
Activities and Interests: solid state physics, nanotechnology, magnetic levitation, mountain tourism
Discoveries
He created a biomimetic adhesive - an adhesive material without sticky substances.
Conducted a unique experiment with diamagnetic levitation, better known as the "flying frog experiment". The scientist managed to hang the frog in the air without the use of cables, mirrors and manual dexterity. Gravity was defeated by a balanced magnetic field (previously all attempts were to turn off gravity from the source). The experiment was repeated with grasshoppers, fish, mice and plants. Experiments have proven that thanks to diamagnetism, any living creature can be lifted into the air.
In 2004, together with his student Konstantin Novoselov, he proved the possibility of synthesizing graphene, a new substance one atom thick with unique properties: increased strength, high electrical conductivity, transparency, and at the same time high density. Currently, graphene (provided that the industrial technology is established) is the most promising material in the field of microelectronics.
