Konstantin Novoselov Winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics Date of Birth: 23.08.1974 Country: Great Britain

Biography of Konstantin Novoselov

Konstantin Sergeevich Novoselov was born on August 23, 1974, in Nizhny Tagil, Russia. He attended school number 39 in Nizhny Tagil, where his grandfather, Viktor Konstantinovich, served as the director. His mother, Tatyana Glebovna, also taught English at the same school. Novoselov was the first participant from Nizhny Tagil in the All-Union School Olympiads in Mathematics and Physics.

In the 9th grade, Novoselov enrolled in a correspondence physics and technical school at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), solving assignments sent to him by mail. He then joined the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in 1991, majoring in Physical and Quantum Electronics. He graduated with honors in 1997, specializing in nanotechnology.

After graduation, Novoselov became a graduate student at the Institute of Solid State Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Chernogolovka. In 1999, he moved to the Netherlands and started working at the High Magnetic Field Laboratory of the University of Nijmegen, under the supervision of another MIPT graduate, Andre Geim. In 2001, following Geim, Novoselov relocated to the United Kingdom and became a research associate at the University of Manchester. He received several grants for research at the university and held a scholarship from the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge since 2007.

In 2004, Novoselov defended his PhD thesis at the University of Nijmegen and, in the same year, together with Geim, discovered graphene, a two-dimensional layer of graphite with a thickness of one atom. Graphene demonstrated excellent thermal conductivity, high mechanical stiffness, and other useful properties. According to Geim, they began research on graphene in 2003 with the assistance of a Chinese student, but the breakthrough came only after Novoselov started working on it.

Novoselov obtained British citizenship without renouncing his Russian citizenship. Besides his work on graphene, he collaborated with Geim on developing adhesive tape that mimics the sticking mechanism of geckos. In 2008, Novoselov received the Europhysics Prize and was named the best young scientist at the University of Manchester for the discovery of graphene.

In October 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene." Novoselov is married to Irina, and they have twin daughters, Vika and Sofia, born in 2009.