Konstantin Novoselov

Konstantin Novoselov
Novoselov in 2013
Konstantin Novoselov
Born	Konstantin Sergeevich Novoselov 23 8, 1974
Birthplace	Nizhny Tagil, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Nationality	Russian, British
Occupation	Physicist, academic
Known for	Graphene isolation and characterisation
Spouse(s)	Irina Barbolina
Awards	Nobel Prize in Physics (2010), Fellow of the Royal Society (2011), Knight Bachelor (2012)

Sir Konstantin Sergeevich Novoselov (Template:Lang-ru; born 23 August 1974) is a Russian-British physicist whose groundbreaking experimental work on the two-dimensional material graphene earned him, together with Andre Geim, the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010. Born in the industrial city of Nizhny Tagil in the Soviet Union, Novoselov rose from modest beginnings to become one of the most cited and influential condensed matter physicists of the early twenty-first century. His landmark 2004 paper, co-authored with Geim and published in Science, demonstrated the successful isolation of single-layer graphene using a deceptively simple technique involving adhesive tape — a breakthrough that opened an entirely new field of materials science. Novoselov has held positions at the University of Manchester, where he served as the Langworthy Professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy, and at the National University of Singapore, where he has led the Centre for Advanced 2D Materials. In February 2026, he was appointed president of Constructor University in Bremen, Germany, becoming the first Nobel laureate to lead that institution. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2011 and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in the 2012 New Year Honours for services to science.

Early Life

Konstantin Sergeevich Novoselov was born on 23 August 1974 in Nizhny Tagil, a city in the Sverdlovsk Oblast of the Russian SFSR, then part of the Soviet Union. Nizhny Tagil is an industrial city in the Ural Mountains region, historically associated with metallurgy and heavy industry. Novoselov grew up during the late Soviet period and showed an early aptitude for the physical sciences.

Details of Novoselov's childhood and family background remain relatively private, though it is known that he was raised in a Russian-speaking household. His early education took place in Nizhny Tagil before he pursued higher studies in Moscow. The transition from a provincial industrial city to the competitive academic environment of one of the Soviet Union's premier physics institutions reflected a trajectory that would come to define his career — an ability to move between different institutional and national contexts while maintaining focus on fundamental scientific questions.

Novoselov has occasionally been referred to by the informal name "Kostya" among colleagues and in media profiles, a common Russian diminutive of Konstantin.

Education

Novoselov pursued his undergraduate education at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), one of Russia's most prestigious scientific universities, often compared to MIT or Caltech in terms of its focus on producing research-oriented physicists and engineers. MIPT's rigorous curriculum in theoretical and experimental physics provided Novoselov with a strong foundation in condensed matter physics and experimental methodology.

After completing his studies in Russia, Novoselov moved to the Netherlands, where he enrolled at Radboud University Nijmegen for his doctoral work. His PhD thesis, entitled "Development and Applications of Mesoscopic Hall Microprobes," was completed in 2004 under the supervision of Andre Geim. The collaboration with Geim, which began during this doctoral period, would prove to be among the most consequential scientific partnerships of the twenty-first century. Geim had previously been based at Radboud University before moving to the University of Manchester, and Novoselov followed him to England, continuing their joint research programme.

Career

Early Research and the Gecko Tape Work

Before the graphene breakthrough that would make him internationally famous, Novoselov was involved in a range of experimental physics projects alongside Andre Geim. One notable early collaboration was their work on "gecko tape," a micro-fabricated adhesive material inspired by the adhesion mechanism of gecko feet. The results of this research were published in Nature Materials in 2003, demonstrating how understanding biological adhesion systems could lead to the development of novel synthetic materials. This early work underscored the experimental creativity and willingness to explore unconventional research directions that would characterise the Geim-Novoselov partnership.

Isolation of Graphene

The defining achievement of Novoselov's career came in 2004, when he and Geim, working at the University of Manchester, succeeded in isolating single layers of graphene — a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice. The method they employed was striking in its simplicity: they used ordinary adhesive tape to repeatedly peel layers from a block of graphite, eventually obtaining flakes thin enough to constitute a single atomic layer. These flakes were then transferred to a silicon dioxide substrate, where their electrical properties could be studied.

Their results, published in Science in October 2004 under the title "Electric Field Effect in Atomically Thin Carbon Films," demonstrated that graphene exhibited remarkable electronic properties, including high electron mobility at room temperature and the ability to sustain an electric field effect. The paper showed that charge carriers in graphene behaved as massless Dirac fermions, a property that had previously been predicted theoretically but never observed experimentally in a solid-state system.

The significance of this work was immediately recognised within the condensed matter physics community. Graphene possessed a unique combination of properties: it was the thinnest material known, extraordinarily strong relative to its weight, an excellent conductor of heat and electricity, and nearly transparent. The isolation of graphene opened up an entirely new subfield of physics and materials science — the study of two-dimensional materials.

Nobel Prize in Physics

On 5 October 2010, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that Novoselov and Geim had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene." At the age of 36, Novoselov became the youngest Nobel laureate in physics since 1973, when Brian Josephson received the prize at the age of 33.

The award recognised not only the initial 2004 isolation of graphene but also the subsequent body of experimental work that Novoselov and Geim carried out to characterise the material's extraordinary properties. The Nobel Committee highlighted the potential applications of graphene in electronics, composite materials, and other fields, noting that the experiments had triggered a global research effort involving thousands of scientists.

The prize also drew attention to the unconventional research culture that Geim and Novoselov fostered. Geim had previously won the Ig Nobel Prize in 2000 for his work on levitating frogs using magnetic fields, making him the only person to have received both an Ig Nobel and a Nobel Prize. The graphene work itself had originated from what Geim described as "Friday evening experiments" — exploratory, curiosity-driven investigations conducted outside the constraints of formal research programmes.

The European Research Council (ERC) noted that Novoselov had been an ERC Starting Grant holder at the time the prize was awarded, making the graphene work one of the most prominent achievements associated with ERC funding.

Research Impact and Citation Record

Following the Nobel Prize, Novoselov continued to be among the most highly cited researchers in the world. Thomson Reuters' Science Watch identified him as one of the world's most influential scientific minds, and he was listed in their analysis of highly cited researchers. His publication record spans a large number of papers in high-impact journals, with a substantial body of work catalogued in astrophysics and physics databases.

Earlier Science Watch analyses had highlighted the rapid growth of graphene-related research in the years following the 2004 paper, identifying Novoselov and Geim's work as the seed from which an entire research field had grown.

University of Manchester

Novoselov spent much of his academic career at the University of Manchester, where he held the position of Langworthy Professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy. The Langworthy Professorship is one of the oldest and most distinguished chairs at the university, and Novoselov's appointment reflected the central role that his graphene research played in Manchester's identity as a leading centre for materials science.

At Manchester, Novoselov was involved in the establishment of research infrastructure dedicated to graphene and related two-dimensional materials. The university invested heavily in this area, creating the National Graphene Institute, which opened in 2015, and positioning itself at the forefront of efforts to translate fundamental graphene research into practical applications. Novoselov was also involved with the EU's Graphene Flagship, a large-scale research initiative launched in 2013 with a budget of one billion euros over ten years, aimed at taking graphene from the laboratory to commercial applications.

Novoselov also held a Royal Society Research Professorship, which provided dedicated research funding and allowed him to focus on long-term scientific questions.

National University of Singapore

In addition to his Manchester role, Novoselov took on a position at the National University of Singapore (NUS), where he served as a professor at the Centre for Advanced 2D Materials. The centre was established to conduct research on graphene and other atomically thin materials, and Novoselov's involvement reflected a broader trend of leading graphene researchers engaging with Asian research institutions, where significant government investment was being directed toward advanced materials science.

Appointment as President of Constructor University

In February 2026, it was announced that Novoselov had been appointed president of Constructor University in Bremen, Germany. The appointment represented the first time a Nobel laureate had been selected to lead the private university, which was formerly known as Jacobs University Bremen. The move signalled a new chapter in Novoselov's career, expanding his role from research leadership to institutional administration of a university with an international student body and a focus on science and technology education.

Broader Engagement and Speaking Activities

Novoselov has remained active in international scientific discourse beyond his formal academic positions. In December 2025, he participated in the fourth Tengchong Scientists Forum in Yunnan Province, China, where he discussed the future of graphene and two-dimensional materials research. He has also spoken about the trajectory of the graphene industry and its path toward commercial maturity.

In May 2026, Novoselov was invited by the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2) to deliver a lecture entitled "Materials in the Flatland" at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and to open the ICREA Workshop on Graphene Nanobiosensors.

Personal Life

Novoselov is married to Irina Barbolina. He holds dual Russian and British citizenship. He was knighted in the 2012 New Year Honours for his services to science, receiving the title of Knight Bachelor. In addition to his scientific work, Novoselov has been noted for his interest in Chinese calligraphy and visual arts, though detailed information about his personal pursuits outside the laboratory remains limited in published sources.

Novoselov has maintained connections to both his Russian origins and his adopted home in the United Kingdom throughout his career. His move to Singapore and subsequently to Germany as president of Constructor University reflects a cosmopolitan career trajectory spanning multiple countries and continents.

Recognition

Novoselov has received numerous awards and honours in recognition of his contributions to physics and materials science. The following represents a selection of the most significant:

• Nobel Prize in Physics (2010) — awarded jointly with Andre Geim "for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene."
• Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) — elected in 2011 in recognition of his contributions to condensed matter physics.
• Knight Bachelor (2012) — conferred in the New Year Honours for services to science.
• EPS Condensed Matter Prize — awarded by the Condensed Matter Division of the European Physical Society.
• Europhysics Prize (2008) — shared with Andre Geim for their discovery of graphene.
• Nicholas Kurti European Science Prize — awarded by Oxford Instruments for his work on mesoscopic physics and two-dimensional materials.
• IUPAP Young Scientist Prize — awarded by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics.
• Royal Society Research Professorship — a prestigious long-term research fellowship.
• European Research Council Starting Grant — awarded prior to the Nobel Prize, supporting his graphene research at Manchester.

He was also identified by Thomson Reuters as one of "The World's Most Influential Scientific Minds" in 2014.

Legacy

The isolation of graphene by Novoselov and Geim in 2004 is considered one of the landmark achievements in condensed matter physics in the early twenty-first century. The discovery did not merely add a new material to the catalogue of known substances; it opened an entirely new domain of physics — the study of two-dimensional materials — and demonstrated that stable, free-standing atomic monolayers could exist under ambient conditions, contrary to theoretical predictions that had suggested such structures would be thermodynamically unstable.

The impact of the graphene work has been measured not only in citations and prizes but in the scale of the global research response it triggered. By the time of the Nobel Prize in 2010, thousands of research groups worldwide were working on graphene and related materials. The EU's Graphene Flagship, launched in 2013, represented one of the largest coordinated research efforts in European science history, with a planned investment of one billion euros over a decade. The University of Manchester built the National Graphene Institute as a dedicated facility for graphene research and commercialisation.

Graphene research has expanded into a wide range of potential applications, including flexible electronics, composite materials, energy storage, water filtration, biomedical sensors, and high-frequency transistors. The 2026 ICREA Workshop on Graphene Nanobiosensors, which Novoselov was invited to open, illustrated the continued expansion of graphene applications into the life sciences. A 2026 study published in Phys.org even suggested that Thomas Edison's 1879 incandescent bulb experiments may have unintentionally produced graphene, drawing a line between nineteenth-century materials experimentation and the twenty-first-century graphene revolution.

Beyond the specific material, the method by which graphene was discovered — through curiosity-driven "Friday evening experiments" rather than targeted, goal-oriented research — has been cited as an example of the value of fundamental, exploratory science. Novoselov's career trajectory, from a Soviet-era upbringing in an industrial city to a Nobel Prize and leadership of international research institutions, has also served as a case study in the globalisation of scientific talent.