Polishing Graphite Into a Tiny Speck

The world around us is three-dimensional. Yet, there are materials that can be regarded as two-dimensional. They are only one layer of atoms thick and have remarkable properties that are different from their three-dimensional counterparts.

Sir Andre Geim created the first-ever man-made 2D material, by isolating graphene, and is one of the pioneers in this line of research. Even beyond his Nobel Prize-winning work on graphene, he has explored new ideas in many different areas of physics throughout his career. Andre tells Jim al-Khalili about his time growing up in the Soviet Union, being rejected from university based on his German ethnicity, his move to Western Europe, and levitating frogs.

(Photo: 2010 Nobel Physics laureate Andre Geim during 2019 China Science Fiction Convention, Beijing, 3 November, 2019. Credit: VCG/Getty Images)