Andre Geim

Sir Andre Geim
Born	Andrei Konstantinovich Geim 21 10, 1958
Birthplace	Sochi, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Nationality	British
Occupation	Physicist, academic
Title	Regius Professor of Physics; Royal Society Research Professor
Employer	University of Manchester
Known for	Discovery of graphene, diamagnetic levitation, gecko tape
Education	Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (PhD)
Spouse(s)	Irina Grigorieva
Awards	Nobel Prize in Physics (2010), Copley Medal (2013), Knight Bachelor (2012)
Website	[http://www.condmat.physics.manchester.ac.uk/people/academic/geim/ Official site]

Sir Andre Konstantin Geim (Template:Lang-ru; born 21 October 1958) is a Russian-born British physicist and a leading figure in condensed matter physics. He serves as Regius Professor of Physics and Royal Society Research Professor at the University of Manchester, where he works in the School of Physics and Astronomy and is affiliated with the National Graphene Institute. Geim is best known for his pioneering experiments that led to the isolation and characterisation of graphene, the two-dimensional form of carbon that is one atom thick, for which he was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with his former doctoral student Konstantin Novoselov. A decade before his Nobel Prize, Geim received an Ig Nobel Prize in 2000 for his experiments in levitating a frog using diamagnetic levitation, making him the first and, Template:As of, the only individual to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize and an Ig Nobel Prize. Born in the Soviet Union to parents of German and part-Russian heritage, Geim pursued an unconventional academic path that took him from Moscow to several European research institutions before settling in Manchester, where his work has reshaped the field of materials science and two-dimensional physics.

Early Life

Andre Konstantin Geim was born on 21 October 1958 in Sochi, a resort city on the Black Sea coast in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union. He is of ethnic German descent. His family's roots trace back to the German communities that had settled in Russia centuries earlier, and his ancestors were among those who experienced the upheavals and forced relocations that affected Volga Germans and other ethnic German populations in the Soviet Union during and after World War II.

Growing up in the Soviet Union, Geim pursued his scientific interests from an early age. He would later describe aspects of his upbringing and the challenges faced by ethnic minorities in Soviet society. His German heritage would remain a point of personal significance throughout his life, even as his career took him far from the country of his birth.

Geim's early formation took place within the Soviet educational system, which placed strong emphasis on mathematics and the natural sciences. His aptitude for physics became apparent during his schooling and led him to pursue higher education at one of the Soviet Union's most prestigious scientific institutions. His early life in Sochi and subsequent move toward the academic centres of Moscow shaped the trajectory that would eventually bring him international recognition.

Education

Geim enrolled at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), one of the leading science and engineering universities in the Soviet Union, often compared to institutions such as MIT in the United States. He completed his undergraduate studies there and continued at MIPT for his doctoral research.

His doctoral thesis, completed in 1987, was titled "Investigation of mechanisms of transport relaxation in metals by a helicon resonance method," and was supervised by Victor Petrashov. The thesis explored phenomena in metal physics using helicon wave techniques, a topic within condensed matter physics that would lay the groundwork for his later experimental career. The rigorous training he received at MIPT, with its emphasis on fundamental physics and experimental methods, proved instrumental in shaping his distinctive approach to research — one characterised by creative experimentation and a willingness to pursue unconventional lines of inquiry.

Career

Early Academic Career in the Soviet Union and Europe

After completing his doctorate at MIPT in 1987, Geim embarked on a peripatetic early career that saw him work at several research institutions across the Soviet Union and Europe. In the years following his PhD, he held research positions at the Institute of Solid State Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Chernogolovka, a major centre for condensed matter research in the Soviet Union.

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Geim moved westward, holding positions at several universities across Europe. He worked at the University of Nottingham in England, at the University of Bath, and at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, among other institutions, before taking a faculty position at the Radboud University Nijmegen (then known as the University of Nijmegen) in the Netherlands. It was during his time at Nijmegen, in the university's High Field Magnet Laboratory, that he carried out some of his most memorable early experiments, including the diamagnetic levitation work that would earn him his Ig Nobel Prize.

Geim acquired Dutch citizenship during his years in the Netherlands, and at the time of his Nobel Prize in 2010 he was a Dutch citizen. He would later also become a British citizen in 2012.

Diamagnetic Levitation and the Ig Nobel Prize

Among Geim's early research achievements, his experiments in diamagnetic levitation attracted wide public attention. Working at the High Field Magnet Laboratory at the University of Nijmegen, Geim and his collaborators demonstrated that it was possible to levitate small objects — most famously, a live frog — using powerful magnetic fields. The phenomenon relies on the diamagnetic properties of water and other materials: when placed inside a sufficiently strong magnetic field, the weakly repulsive magnetic response of water molecules in a living organism is enough to counteract gravity, causing the object to float.

The levitating frog experiment, published in the late 1990s, captured the public imagination and became one of the most widely cited examples of playful but serious science. In 2000, Geim was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize in Physics for this work, an award given for research that "first makes people laugh, then makes them think." Geim embraced the Ig Nobel with good humour, and it became a defining element of his public reputation — a symbol of his belief that scientific curiosity and a sense of play are essential ingredients in productive research. In a 2024 talk at Harvard University, Geim discussed the levitating frog experiment and its relationship to serious scientific inquiry, emphasising the value of the "fun, fanciful side of very serious science."

The diamagnetic levitation research had applications beyond its entertainment value. It contributed to a deeper understanding of diamagnetism and demonstrated the potential of high magnetic field environments for exploring fundamental physical phenomena.

Move to Manchester and Graphene Discovery

In 2001, Geim moved to the University of Manchester, where he was appointed professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy. It was at Manchester that he carried out the work for which he is most celebrated: the isolation and characterisation of graphene.

Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a two-dimensional hexagonal lattice. Although its existence had been theorised for decades, graphene had long been considered an academic curiosity — many physicists believed that two-dimensional crystals would be thermodynamically unstable and could not exist in a free-standing form. Geim, together with his colleague and former doctoral student Konstantin Novoselov, challenged this assumption through a remarkably simple experiment.

In 2004, Geim and Novoselov used adhesive tape to repeatedly peel layers from a piece of graphite, eventually obtaining flakes just one atom thick — graphene. This method, sometimes called the "Scotch tape method" or "mechanical exfoliation," was striking in its simplicity and stood in contrast to the highly sophisticated fabrication techniques typically used in materials science. The researchers then transferred these ultra-thin flakes to a silicon substrate, where they could be identified and studied using optical and electronic methods.

The results were remarkable. Graphene proved to be extraordinarily strong — roughly 200 times stronger than steel by weight — while being nearly transparent, extremely flexible, and an excellent conductor of electricity and heat. The material exhibited a range of unusual electronic properties, including a half-integer quantum Hall effect and the behaviour of its charge carriers as massless Dirac fermions, phenomena that opened new avenues in fundamental physics and potential applications.

Geim and Novoselov published their initial findings in the journal Science in 2004, and subsequent papers elaborated on graphene's extraordinary properties. The work sparked a worldwide surge of interest in two-dimensional materials, inaugurating an entirely new field of research.

Nobel Prize in Physics

On 5 October 2010, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that the Nobel Prize in Physics for that year would be awarded jointly to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov "for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene." At the time of the award, Geim was 51 years old and held Dutch citizenship. Novoselov, who had been Geim's doctoral student and close collaborator, was 36.

In his Nobel lecture, Geim discussed the history of the graphene discovery, the broader significance of two-dimensional materials, and the role of curiosity-driven research in yielding unexpected breakthroughs. He emphasised that the discovery of graphene was not the product of a targeted research programme but rather emerged from a culture of exploration and intellectual freedom — what he called "Friday night experiments," informal research sessions in which he and his colleagues pursued ideas outside the mainstream of their funded projects.

The Nobel Prize brought immense attention not only to Geim and Novoselov personally but also to the University of Manchester and to the broader field of nanomaterials. In the years following the award, the university invested heavily in graphene research, establishing the National Graphene Institute, a dedicated research facility that opened in 2015.

Gecko Tape and Other Research

In addition to graphene and diamagnetic levitation, Geim has made contributions to several other areas of condensed matter physics. Among the most notable of these is his work on gecko tape, a synthetic adhesive material inspired by the adhesion mechanism used by geckos to climb smooth surfaces. Working with collaborators, Geim demonstrated that an adhesive based on microscopic pillars — mimicking the structure of gecko foot pads — could support significant weight and adhere to smooth surfaces in a manner analogous to the biological system. The research contributed to the field of biomimetics and attracted interest for potential applications ranging from robotics to consumer products.

Geim's publication record reflects his broad interests across condensed matter physics. His research has encompassed topics including mesoscopic physics, the properties of thin films and heterostructures, and the behaviour of matter in high magnetic fields.

Continued Research at Manchester

In the years following the Nobel Prize, Geim continued active research at the University of Manchester, where he holds the titles of Regius Professor of Physics and Royal Society Research Professor. His work has increasingly focused on the properties of two-dimensional materials beyond graphene, as well as on the behaviour of materials at the nanoscale.

In August 2025, researchers at the National Graphene Institute, working in connection with Geim's group, announced the production of the "cleanest graphene ever," enabling the observation of quantum phenomena in magnetic fields that had previously been inaccessible. In October 2025, the Manchester team published findings on unexpected properties of water at the nanoscale, demonstrating that confined water exhibits behaviours not predicted by classical models.

Geim has also been active in international academic engagement. In November 2025, he participated in the Taiwan Bridges Project, an initiative designed to link Taiwan with international partners for the advancement of higher education and the development of research talent.

Doctoral Students

Geim has supervised a number of doctoral students, several of whom have gone on to notable academic and research careers. His most prominent doctoral student is Konstantin Novoselov, who shared the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics with Geim and who has continued as a leading researcher in the field of two-dimensional materials. Other doctoral students supervised by Geim include Soren Neubeck, Rashid Jalil, Da Jiang, Rahul Raveendran-Nair, Ibtsam Riaz, and Gareth Young.

Personal Life

Geim is married to Irina Grigorieva, who is herself a physicist and academic at the University of Manchester. The couple's shared professional interests have made them a notable partnership in the condensed matter physics community.

Geim's national identity has been the subject of public discussion. Born in the Soviet Union as an ethnic German, he later acquired Dutch citizenship during his years working at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. At the time of his Nobel Prize in 2010, he was a Dutch citizen. He subsequently acquired British citizenship in 2012 in order to accept a knighthood from the British Crown and has described himself as Dutch-British.

In July 2025, it was widely reported in Dutch and international media that Geim had lost his Dutch nationality. Under Dutch nationality law, citizens who acquire the nationality of another country may lose their Dutch citizenship if they do not take steps to retain it. Having accepted British citizenship in 2012 for the purpose of his knighthood, Geim was informed in 2025 that he was no longer entitled to hold a Dutch passport. The case attracted attention as an illustration of the tensions between national citizenship laws and the increasingly international nature of modern scientific careers.

Recognition

Geim has received numerous awards and honours over the course of his career, reflecting both the significance of his research contributions and the breadth of his influence on physics and materials science.

His most prominent honour is the Nobel Prize in Physics, awarded jointly with Konstantin Novoselov in 2010 for their experiments on graphene. In the same year, Geim was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Netherlands Lion by the Dutch government in recognition of his contributions to science.

In 2012, Geim was made a Knight Bachelor in the New Year Honours of the United Kingdom, conferring the title "Sir."

In 2013, he was awarded the Copley Medal by the Royal Society, one of the oldest and most prestigious scientific awards in the world, given for outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science.

Geim has also received the Mott Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics. He was named among the Scientific American 50 in 2006, a list recognising individuals and teams for outstanding acts of leadership in science and technology during the preceding year.

In addition to his Nobel Prize, Geim holds a Guinness World Record as the only person to have received both a Nobel Prize and an Ig Nobel Prize.

He has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and has received honorary degrees and lectureships from institutions around the world.

Legacy

Geim's most enduring scientific legacy lies in the discovery and development of graphene, which has become one of the most studied materials in modern physics and engineering. The isolation of graphene in 2004 opened the field of two-dimensional materials research, a domain that has since expanded to encompass dozens of other atomically thin materials, including boron nitride, molybdenum disulfide, and various transition metal dichalcogenides. The ability to stack and combine these materials into van der Waals heterostructures has created new possibilities in electronics, photonics, energy storage, and sensing.

The National Graphene Institute at the University of Manchester, established in large part as a consequence of Geim and Novoselov's work, has become a major hub for graphene research and the translation of laboratory findings into industrial applications. Geim's continued research at the institute — including 2025 work on ultra-clean graphene and the nanoscale behaviour of water — has demonstrated the ongoing productivity of the research programme he helped to found.

Beyond the specifics of graphene, Geim has become known as an advocate for curiosity-driven research and intellectual risk-taking in science. His "Friday night experiments" — informal, unfunded explorations of unusual ideas — yielded both the levitating frog and graphene, two discoveries that, while vastly different in their scientific impact, both emerged from a willingness to pursue questions that lay outside conventional research agendas. Geim has spoken and written frequently about the importance of maintaining this spirit of exploration in an era of increasingly targeted and short-term research funding.

His unique distinction of holding both a Nobel Prize and an Ig Nobel Prize has made him an emblem of the view that humour, playfulness, and genuine scientific achievement are not mutually exclusive — and may, in fact, be deeply connected.