Konstantin S. Novoselov

Biosketch

Prof. Sir Konstantin ‘Kostya’ Novoselov FRS was born in Russia in August 1974. He has both British and Russian citizenship. He is best known for isolating graphene at The University of Manchester in 2004, and is an expert in condensed matter physics, mesoscopic physics, and nanotechnology. Every year since 2014 Kostya Novoselov is included in the list of the most highly cited researchers in the world. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2010 for his achievements with graphene. Kostya holds positions of a Research Professor at the National University of Singapore. He is also part time Langworthy Professor of Physics and the Royal Society Research Professor at The University of Manchester.

He graduated from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and undertook his PhD studies at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands before moving to The University of Manchester in 2001. Later Professor Novoselov joint the National University of Singapore in 2019. Professor Novoselov has published more than 320 peer-reviewed research papers. He was awarded with numerous prizes, including Nicholas Kurti Prize (2007), International Union of Pure and Applied Science Prize (2008), MIT Technology Review young innovator (2008), Europhysics Prize (2008), Bragg Lecture Prize from the Union of Crystallography (2011), the Kohn Award Lecture (2012), Leverhulme Medal from the Royal Society (2013), Onsager medal (2014), Carbon medal (2016), Dalton medal (2016) among many others. He was knighted in the 2012 New Year Honours.

Research Interests

Professor Novoselov is an expert in condensed matter physics, mesoscopic physics, nanotechnology. Among his achievements are the seminal works on mesoscopic transport in 2-dimensional (2D) electron gas, mesoscopic phenomena in superconducting and ferromagnetic materials. He is best known for his isolation of graphene in 2004, the work he received Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 (jointly with his colleague, Professor Andre Geim). Graphene is the first 2D material isolated. It consists of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice. Graphene has a number of unique properties. Thus, electrons in graphene obey linear dispersion relation, thus mimicking massless relativistic parties. This brings to life a number of exciting phenomena, such a Klein paradox, half-integer quantum Hall effect, weak anti-localisation, etc. Furthermore, because of the unique combination of superlatives, graphene is considered to be a very promising material for future applications: from electronics and optoelectronics to composite materials and batteries. Professor Novoselov collaborated with several leading industrial companies and initiated several spin-off companies in the area of printable and flexible electronics and materials for thermal management. Later professor Novoselov discovered other 2D materials, such as hexagonal boron nitride, MoS2, WSe2, NbSe2, InSe, and many others. Collectively such materials now form a class of 2D atomic crystals. Furthermore, professor Novoselov demonstrated that such 2D crystals can be assembled into 3D stack - the so called van der Waals heterostructures. The properties of such heterostructures depend on the type, sequence and the relative orientation of the individual layers and can be controlled with atomic precision.