The 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics has gone to the Russians Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov for their pioneering work in the development of graphene , a two-dimensional material whose sheets are only the thickness of a carbon atom, and which is considered by many as the most exciting discovery made in the last decade in solid state physics .
Isolated for the first time in 2004, graphene is postulated as a substitute for silicon for the development of semiconductors on which future ultra-fast computers will be based. As if that were not enough, in 2007, North American scientists created a new material by oxidizing graphene, as thin as paper and as hard as diamond. And in 2008, researchers from Columbia University empirically demonstrated that graphene is the strongest material ever tested.
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