Graphene Creaters Get Nobel prize

Two researchers were awarded the Nobel in physics for their work today in graphene, a super-thin sheet of carbon atoms with unusual and potentially useful properties.
Andre Geim and Novoselov Konstantin, now a professor at the University of Manchester, won the top prize in physics for his work in isolating graphene graphite - a most common form of carbon used in pencils - and characterize their behavior.
Graphene has the potential to profoundly transform the science of materials - everything from computer chips and flexible displays to solar cells and light aircraft. These products are not about to hit the stores, but the investigation is active - for example, IBM's work on graphene transistors.
"As a material is completely new. - Not only the smallest ever, but also stronger as a conductor of electricity that works as well as copper as a conductor of heat that beats all other known materials is almost .. but completely transparent, so dense that not even the helium, the smallest atom gas can pass through it, "said the Swedish Academy of Sciences in its announcement of the Nobel Prize. "Carbon, the basis of all known life on earth, we were surprised again."
Physicists already knew was composed of graphite sheets of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal array, but until Novoselev and Geim isolated graphene in 2004, it was not clear that graphene can exist in a stable by itself.
Isolated graphene using a technique almost ridiculously mundane - stripping a layer of a graphite crystal with tape. Although its method of production may have been low-tech, the same can not be said for the hard work necessary to confirm that the coating had been transferred to a silicon substrate for study.
Graphene is a close relative of another novel arrangements of carbon atoms - carbon nanotubes in which the sheet is rolled into a tube and buckminsterfullerene, the 60-atom spheres also called buckyballs.
One of the best properties of graphene is its ability to conduct electricity. It is not a superconductor, but relatively little energy lost to resistance compared to most materials. Could be used, for example, for conductive plastic.
It is also strong - one square meter of graphene tied between two trees would be strong enough to support more than 8 pounds. Not bad for a transparent sheet of one atom thick that weigh less than a thousandth of a gram.
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