The Nobel Prize in Physics for 2010 has been awarded to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, both at the University of Manchester, UK, “for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene”.

Referring to graphene as "the perfect atomic lattice", the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which also awards the Nobel prizes in chemistry and economics, credit Geim and Novoselov for showing that graphene, which is a thin flake of ordinary carbon, "has exceptional properties that originate from the remarkable world of quantum physics."

For more details about this year's Nobel prize winners and their work, please visit the official website.

Geim and Novoselov have been active participants in ICTP educational activities. Both lectured at ICTP's "Graphene Week 2008" conference, which was devoted to the rapidly progressing science and technology of graphene and ultra-thin graphitic films. Geim was also a lecturer at ICTP's College on Physics of Nano-devices in 2006 and a tutor at ICTP's Research Workshop on Condensed Matter Physics in 1997. Novoselov was a speaker at the 2007 Conference on Quantum Phenomena in Confined Dimensions.