Konstantin Sergeevich Novoselov
active c. 1974, Nizhny Tagil, Soviet Union
Russian-British physicist, co-discoverer of graphene; among the youngest Nobel laureates of the modern era.
Novoselov began as Andre Geim's student in the Netherlands, following him to Manchester. He drove the exfoliation technique behind the 2004 graphene paper and extended it to other 2D materials (hBN, MoS2…), founding 'van der Waals heterostructures' assembled layer by atomic layer.
Nobel-winning work
With Geim, Novoselov proved that a crystal one atom thick could exist stably — something theory had long doubted. His transport measurements revealed a Dirac-like sea of electrons in graphene, opening research into 2D materials and room-temperature quantum effects.
Workplaces: University of Manchester, National University of Singapore
United Kingdom, Russia