Andrey game Nobel Prize. Andre Geim. Biography. Photo. Andrey Geim congratulated Sergeev on his election as President of the Russian Academy of Sciences
) - Russian physicist, member of the Royal Society of London (2007), Nobel Prize winner 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, since 1964, worked as the chief engineer of the Nalchik Electrovacuum Plant. In 1975, Andrei 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 a factory with his father. 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 research assistant 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 Great Britain, 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 became famous for his experiments on diamagnetic levitation. For example, the experiment with the "flying frog" was awarded the 2000 Shnobel 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 with his student, Konstantin Novoselov, published an article in the journal Science, where he 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 conductivity and thermal conductivity, transparent to light, but at the same time dense enough not to let through helium molecules - the smallest known molecules. This discovery was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2010.
In 2011, Queen Elizabeth bestowed the title of Knight Bachelor and the title "Sir" on Geim. In the same year, he received the Niels Bohr Medal for Excellence in Physics.
On May 28, 2013, Andrei Geim arrived in Moscow at the invitation of the Minister of Education and Science Dmitry Livanov and accepted an offer to become an honorary co-chairman of the Public Council of the Ministry of Education and Science. At the end of June, he supported the draft law on the reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences ().
In 2010, Andrei Geim won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of graphene. Since then, wonder material - this is the name that graphene has stuck in the English-language literature - has become a really hot topic. Today, Geim's research group at the University of Manchester continues to research two-dimensional materials and makes new discoveries. The scientist presented the latest results of work and prospects in the field of 2D heterostructure research 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 spoke about why it is not worthwhile to study the same scientific field all your life, which motivates young scientists to go to basic science and why should researchers you need to learn how to present the results of your work as much as possible.
Andrey Geim. Photos courtesy of the Faculty of Physics and Technology of ITMO University
During your presentation, you talked about the latest results and prospects for the study of two-dimensional materials. But if you go backwhat exactly brought you into this area and what key research are you doing now?
At the conference, I presented a report in which I named what I am doing now - 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 make anything thinner than one atom. Graphene became a kind of snowball that caused an avalanche.
This area has evolved step by step. Today people are engaged in two-dimensional materials, which we have known for more than ten years, here we were also pioneers. And after that, it became interesting how these materials were stacked on top of each other - I called this graphene 2.0.
We are still in the business of fine materials. But in the last few years, I have jumped a little away from my specialty - this is the quantum physics, especially electrical properties solids... Now I am engaged in molecular transport. We have learned instead of graphene, if you like, to make an empty space, antigraphene, “two-dimensional nothing”. Studying the properties of cavities, how they allow molecules to flow, and the like - no one has done this 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 watch how the properties of, for example, water change, if you set restrictions ( In particular, research 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 consists of water and it has always been believed that water is the most polarizable material of all 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 twentieth century shows that, as a rule, it takes 20 to 40 years for new materials or new drugs to travel 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 of our materials that we used until recently were characterized by height, length, width - such attributes. And now, after 10 thousand years of civilization, we suddenly found material - and not just one, but dozens - that are radically different from the Stone, Iron, Bronze, Silicon Ages, and so on. it new class 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 Steve Jobs invented the telephone and Bill Gates invented the computer. In fact, this is 70 years of work, condensed matter physics. First, people figured out how silicon and germanium work, then they started making switches, and so on.
And if you go back to what is happening with graphene, hundreds of companies in China are already making a profit on this. This is the data that I know. Products using graphene can be seen everywhere: they make shoe soles, paint with all kinds of fillers for protection, and much more. It is slowly but unwinding. Although slow in terms of industry scale. Since 2010, we have learned how to make graphene in bulk, and not as we do - 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 really revolutionary, unique.
How is the work in your research group being structured now?
The style of work is not to be locked in one and the same direction, as I usually say, from the scientific cradle to scientific coffin... In the Soviet Union, at least, it was very popular: people defend a candidate's, doctoral degree, and until retirement do the same thing. Of course, in any business you need professionalism, 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 is "two-dimensional nothing" - this idea came from a completely different area. For some reason, which only later became clear, it turned out to be quite 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 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 are very enthusiastic about new topics.
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 pursue science, including fundamental science? After all, even now the prospects in the same industry are more obvious.
People try their hand. Science is engaged in by five to six million people in the world: someone tries, someone does not like it. Life in science, especially in fundamental science, is not sweet. When you are a graduate student, you feel like you are doing science. And when you get a full-time job - then studies are piling up, and grants need to be written, and articles in magazines to attach, that is still a hassle. Therefore, in comparison with the industry, where everything is a bit like in the army, in science it is different.
Survival is real, but you need to run very quickly: this is not a hundred meters, this is a marathon for life. And you also need to study all your life. Some people like it, as I do. There is so much adrenaline every time! For example, when you open a referee report for your article. And being a Nobel laureate doesn't help. It works like this: “Huh, Nobel laureate? Let's teach him how to really do science. " Therefore, in the evening, when it is already necessary to go to bed, I never open the comments of the reviewers.
There is enough adrenaline, everything is interesting, you learn something new all your life, so some young people, molded from the same test, want to make their way in science. From my experience, the only really successful scientists who have passed through me are those who started with 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 think about the soul for now. During this time in graduate school, they form a style of work: if they like it, they become quite successful.
Just referring to the topic of grants. Many scientists say that working in science is, among other things, a lot of routine, bureaucracy, and you constantly need to look for funding. When, then, should the research be carried out?
Taxpayers give money for science out of their hard earned money. And what research to fund is up to peers who are other scientists. Therefore, they need to prove, get used to high competition. There will not be enough money for everyone, even if they are given a lot, 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 referenced. People vote with their feet, and in this case with a pen - which article to write. The number of links shows how successful you are, how much your colleagues respect your result. Competition in science is as strong as it is in sports at the Olympics.
In Europe, this is not so pronounced, but in America, full professors in my position spend almost all of their time writing grants and talking with their students once a month. Most of my time is spent writing articles for my undergraduate and graduate students. Because when nice results poorly presented - the heart bleeds. Is it better than writing grants or worse? Do not 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 brought to the attention of a wide range of people - those very taxpayers. Here I would like to touch upon the topic of popularizing science: how much, in your opinion, should scientists themselves tell a large audience about their work?
Where to go? If taxpayers do not understand, then the government also ceases to understand. People still respect science, especially people with education. If this had not happened, all the money would have been given, as they say, for instant 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 that ultimately 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 grin refer to those who appear on television and the like. For example, our department employs ( English physicist, engaged in particle physics, researcher at the Royal Society of London, professor at the University of Manchester and renowned popularizer of science - ed.). Even many are skeptical of him: they say, a fake professor, he has not done anything in science. The fact that he knows how to present research results is very important, someone has to do it.
Sir Andrei Konstantinovich Geim 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. V the given time is Regius Professor and Director of the Center for Mesoscience and Nanotechnology at the University of Manchester.
Andrey Geim: biography
Born on 21.10.58 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 is Hebrew. Geim has a brother, Vladislav. In 1965, his family moved to Nalchik, where he studied at a school specializing in English language... 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 became a candidate of sciences 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 physics. elementary particles or astrophysicist, but today he is happy with his choice.
Geim worked as a researcher at the Institute of Microelectronic Technologies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, and since 1990 - at the universities of Nottingham (twice), Bath and Copenhagen. According to him, abroad he could be engaged in research, and not deal with politics, and therefore decided to leave the USSR.
Working in the Netherlands
Andrei 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 obtained Dutch citizenship. One of his graduate students was Konstantin Novoselov, who became his main scientific partner. However, according to Geim, his academic career in the Netherlands was far from cloudless. He was offered a professorship in Nijmegen and Eindhoven, but he refused, as he found the Dutch academic system too hierarchical and full of petty politicking, it is completely different from the British, where every employee is equal. In his Nobel lecture, Game later said that this situation was a bit surreal, since outside the university he was warmly received everywhere, including him scientific director and other scientists.
Moving to the UK
In 2001, Game became professor of physics at the University of Manchester, and in 2002 was appointed director of the Manchester Center for Mesoscience and Nanotechnology and Professor Langworthy. His wife and longtime co-author Irina Grigorieva also moved to Manchester as a teacher. Later they were joined by Konstantin Novoselov. Since 2007, Geim has been a Senior Fellow of the Council for Engineering and Physics scientific research... In 2010, the University of Nijmegen appointed him professor of innovative materials and nanoscience.
Research
Game was able to find an easy way to isolate one layer of graphite atoms, known as graphene, in collaboration with scientists from the University of Manchester and IMT. In October 2004, the group published the results of their work 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 and also one of the strongest and hardest. The substance has many potential uses and is an excellent alternative to silicon. One of the earliest uses of graphene could be in the development of flexible touch screens, Geim said. He has not patented new material because it would require a specific area of application and a partner in the industry to do so.
The physicist was developing a biomimetic adhesive that became known as gecko tape because of the stickiness of the gecko's limbs. These studies are still in the early stages, but they already give hope that in the future people will be able to climb ceilings like Spider-Man.
In 1997, Geim investigated the effects of magnetism on water, leading to the famous discovery of direct diamagnetic levitation of water, which was best known for the demonstration of a levitating frog. He also worked on superconductivity and mesoscopic physics.
Regarding the choice of subjects, Game said he despises the approach of many choosing a subject for their PhD thesis and then continuing the same topic until retirement. Before he got his first full-time position, he changed his subject five times and it helped him learn a lot.
The history of the discovery of graphene
One autumn evening in 2002, Andrei 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, consisting of monoatomic films, was an obvious candidate for research, but standard methods for separating ultra-thin samples would overheat and destroy it. So Geim instructed one of Da Jiang's new graduate students to try to get as thin a sample as possible, at least a few hundred layers of atoms, by polishing a one-inch crystal of graphite. A few weeks later, Jiang brought in a speck 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 rebuked him for rubbing off the mountain to get a grain of sand, one of his older companions saw lumps of used scotch tape in the wastebasket, the sticky side of which was covered with a gray, slightly shiny film of graphite remnants.
In laboratories around the world, researchers use tape to test the adhesive properties of experimental samples. The carbon layers that make up the graphite are weakly bound (since 1564, the material has been used in pencils, as it leaves a visible mark on the paper), so that the adhesive tape easily separates the flakes. Game placed a piece of duct tape under a microscope and found that 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 this 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 graphene remains in one plane, which ripples as matter stabilizes.
Graphene: remarkable properties
Andrei Geim resorted to the help of a graduate student, Konstantin Novoselov, and they began to study the new substance for fourteen hours a day. Over the next two years, they conducted a series of experiments in which the material's amazing properties were discovered. Because of its unique structure, electrons, without being influenced by other layers, can move around the lattice unhindered and unusually quickly. The conductivity of graphene is thousands of times that of copper. The first revelation for Geim was the observation of a pronounced "field effect", which manifests itself in the presence of electric field, which allows you to control the conductivity. This effect is one of the defining characteristics of silicon used in computer chips. This suggests that graphene could be the replacement that computer makers have been looking for for years.
The path to recognition
Game and Konstantin Novoselov wrote a three-page paper describing their discoveries. It was rejected twice by Nature, one reviewer of which stated that it was impossible to isolate a stable two-dimensional material, and the other did not see in it “sufficient scientific progress". But in October 2004, an article entitled "The Effect of an Electric Field in Carbon Films of Atomic Thickness" was published in the journal Science, making a great impression on scientists - before their eyes, science fiction was becoming reality.
Avalanche of discoveries
Laboratories around the world have begun research using the Geim 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 was found to be as pliable as rubber and could stretch up to 120% of its length. Thanks to the research of Philip Kim, and then the scientists of Columbia University, it was discovered that this material even more electrically conductive than previously stated. Kim placed 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 electric charge passes through a semiconductor - 250 times larger than that of silicon.
Technology race
In 2010, six years after the opening, which was made by Andrey Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, the Nobel Prize was still awarded to them. Then the media called graphene "a miracle material", a substance that "can change the world." He was approached by academic researchers in the field of physics, electrical engineering, medicine, chemistry, and others. Patents have been issued for the use of graphene in batteries, water desalination systems, advanced solar panels, ultrafast microcomputers.
Scientists in China have created the world's lightest material - graphene airgel. It is 7 times lighter than air - one cubic meter of substance weighs only 160 g. Graphene-airgel is created by freeze-drying a gel containing graphene and nanotubes.
At the University of Manchester, where Game and Novoselov work, the British government invested $ 60 million to create on its basis National Institute graphene, 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 world's first revolutionary products based on a new material.
Honorary titles and awards
The experiment with the magnetic levitation of a living frog did not produce exactly the result that Michael Berry and Andrey Geim expected. NS Nobel Prize was presented to them in 2000.
Game received the Scientific American 50 award in 2006.
In 2007, the Institute of Physics awarded him the Mott Prize and Medal. At the same time, Geim was elected a member of the Royal Society.
Game and Novoselov shared the 2008 Europhysics award "for the detection and isolation of the monatomic layer of carbon and the determination of its remarkable electronic properties." In 2009 he received the Kerberian award.
The next Andrew Geim John Carty 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 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 was awarded honorary doctorates from Delft technical university, The Higher Technical School of Zurich, the Universities of Antwerp and Manchester.
In 2010, he became a Knight Commander of the Order of the Netherlands Lion for his contribution to Dutch science. In 2012, for services to science, Game was promoted to the knight-bachelor. 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 Nobel Prize in Physics 2010 for their pioneering research on graphene. After hearing about the award, Geim said that he did not expect to receive it this year and was not going to change his plans in this regard. A modern physicist has expressed the hope that graphene and other two-dimensional crystals will change the daily life of humanity in the same way that plastic did. The award made him the first person to become a Nobel and a Nobel Prize winner at the same time. The lecture took place on December 8, 2010 at Stockholm University.
Andrey Geim at the Nobel Prize in Physics. Stockholm, 2010
Was born in 1958 in Sochi, in a family of engineers of German origin with Jewish roots on the mother's side. In 1964 the family moved to Nalchik.
Father, Konstantin Alekseevich Geim (1910-1998), since 1964 worked as chief engineer of the Nalchik Electrovacuum Plant; mother, Nina Nikolaevna Bayer (born 1927), worked as chief technologist there.
In 1975, Andrei Geim graduated from secondary school No. 3 in the city of Nalchik with a gold medal and tried to enter MEPhI, but unsuccessfully (an obstacle was German origin applicant). After working for 8 months at the Nalchik Electrovacuum Plant, in 1976 he entered the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.
Until 1982 he studied at the Faculty of General and Applied Physics, graduated with honors ("four" in the diploma only in the political economy of socialism) and entered graduate school. In 1987 he received a PhD in Physics and Mathematics from the Institute of Solid State Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He worked as a researcher at the ISSP of the USSR Academy of Sciences and at the Institute for Problems of Microelectronic Technology of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Received a Royal Society Fellowship in 1990 and left Soviet Union... He worked at the University of Nottingham and also briefly at the University of Copenhagen, before becoming an assistant professor, and since 2001 - at the University of Manchester. Currently he is the head of the Manchester Center for Mesoscience and Nanotechnology, as well as the head of the Department of Condensed Matter Physics.
Honorary Doctor of the Delft University of Technology, the Swiss Higher Technical School of Zurich and the University of Antwerp. He has the title of "Langworthy Professor" of the University of Manchester (Langworthy Professor, among those awarded this title were Ernest Rutherford, Laurence Bragg and Patrick Blackett).
In 2008, he received an offer to head the Max Planck Institute in Germany, but refused.
National of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Wife - Irina Grigorieva (a graduate of the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys), worked, like Game, at the ISSP of the USSR Academy of Sciences, currently works with her husband in the laboratory of the University of Manchester.
After Geim was awarded the Nobel Prize, it was announced that he would be invited to work at Skolkovo. Game said: At the same time, Game said that he does not have Russian citizenship and feels comfortable in the UK, expressing skepticism about the project Russian government to create an analogue of Silicon Valley in the country.
Geim's achievements include the creation of a biomimetic adhesive (glue), which later became known as gecko tape.
Also widely known is the experiment with, including with the famous "flying frog", for which Game, together with the famous mathematician and theorist Sir Michael Berry from, received the 2000 Shnobel Prize.
In 2004, Andrei Geim, together with his student Konstantin Novoselov, invented a technology for producing graphene - a new material that is a monoatomic layer of carbon. As it turned out in the course of further experiments, graphene has a number of unique properties: it has increased strength, conducts electricity as well as copper, surpasses all known materials in thermal conductivity, is transparent to light, but at the same time dense enough not to let even helium molecules pass through. Are the smallest known molecules. All this makes it a promising material for a number of applications, such as the creation of touch screens, light panels and, possibly, solar panels.
For this discovery (Great Britain) in 2007 he awarded Geim. He also received the prestigious EuroPhysics Prize (with Konstantin Novoselov). In 2010, the invention of graphene was also awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, which Geim also shared with Novoselov.
- Andrey Geim is fond of mountain tourism. Elbrus became his first "five-thousander", and his favorite mountain was Kilimanjaro
- The scientist is distinguished by a kind of humor. One of the proofs of this is the article on diamagnetic levitation, in which Geim's favorite hamster ("Hamster") Tisha was co-authored. Game himself on this occasion stated that the contribution of the hamster to the experiment with levitation was more direct... Subsequently, this work was used to obtain a Ph.D. degree.
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
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 sleight of hand. Gravity was defeated by balanced magnetic field(previously all attempts were to disconnect 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. At the moment, graphene (provided that industrial technology is established) is the most promising material in the field of microelectronics.