Andre Geim

Sir Andre Konstantin Geim (Андре́й Константи́нович Гейм; born 21 October 1958; IPA1 pronunciation: ɑːndreɪ gaɪm) is a Russian-born Dutch–British physicist working in England in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester.

Andre Geim was born to Konstantin Alekseyevich Geim and Nina Nikolayevna Bayer in Sochi, Russia, on 21 October 1958.

Both his parents were engineers of German origin.

His grandfather Nikolay N. Bayer (Mykola Baier in Ukrainian) was a notable public figure in Ukraine of the early 20th century, one of its first nature conservationists and the founder/first rector of Kaminiets-Podilskyi University.

In 1965, the family moved to Nalchik, where he studied at a high school.

After graduation, he applied to the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute.

He took the entrance exams twice, but attributes his failure to qualify to discrimination on account of his German ethnicity.

He then applied to the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), where he was accepted.

He said that at the time he would not have chosen to study solid-state physics, preferring particle physics or astrophysics, but is now happy with his choice.

He received a diplom (MSc degree equivalent) from MIPT in 1982 and a Candidate of Sciences (PhD equivalent) degree in metal physics in 1987 from the Institute of Solid State Physics (ISSP) at the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) in Chernogolovka.

After earning his PhD with Victor Petrashov, Geim worked as a research scientist at the Institute for Microelectronics Technology (IMT) at RAS, and from 1990 as a post-doctoral fellow at the universities of Nottingham (twice), Bath, and Copenhagen.

He said that while at Nottingham he could spend his time on research rather than "swimming through Soviet treacle," and determined to leave the Soviet Union.

He obtained his first tenured position in 1994, when he was appointed associate professor at Radboud University Nijmegen, where he worked on mesoscopic superconductivity.

He later gained Dutch citizenship.

One of his doctoral students at Nijmegen was Konstantin Novoselov, who went on to become his main research partner.

However, Geim has said that he had an unpleasant time during his academic career in the Netherlands.

He was offered professorships at Nijmegen and Eindhoven, but turned them down as he found the Dutch academic system too hierarchical and full of petty politicking.

"This can be pretty unpleasant at times," he says.

"It's not like the British system where every staff member is an equal quantity."

On the other hand, Geim writes in his Nobel lecture that "the situation was a bit surreal because outside the university walls I received a warm-hearted welcome from everyone around, including Jan Kees and other academics."

(Prof. Jan Kees Maan was the research boss of Geim during his time at Radboud University Nijmegen.)

Geim's research in 1997 into the possible effects of magnetism on water scaling led to the famous discovery of direct diamagnetic levitation of water, and led to a frog being levitated.

Geim had also been awarded an Ig Nobel Prize earlier in 2000 for levitating a frog using its intrinsic magnetism.

He is the first and only individual, as of 2023, to have received both Nobel and Ig Nobel prizes, for which he holds the Guinness World Record.

For this experiment, he and Michael Berry received the 2000 Ig Nobel Prize.

In 2001 he became a professor of physics at the University of Manchester, and was appointed director of the Manchester Centre for Mesoscience and Nanotechnology in 2002.

Geim's wife and long-standing co-author, Irina Grigorieva, also moved to Manchester as a lecturer in 2001.

The same year, they were joined by Novoselov who moved to Manchester from Nijmegen, which awarded him a PhD in 2004.

The team published their findings in October 2004 in Science.

Graphene consists of one-atom-thick layers of carbon atoms arranged in two-dimensional hexagons, and is the thinnest material in the world, as well as one of the strongest and hardest.

The material has many potential applications.

Geim said one of the first applications of graphene could be in the development of flexible touchscreens, and that he has not patented the material because he would need a specific application and an industrial partner.

Geim also developed a biomimetic adhesive which became known as gecko tape —so called because it works on the same principle as adhesion of gecko feet—research of which is still in the early stages.

It is hoped that the development will eventually allow humans to scale ceilings, like Spider-Man.

Geim served as Langworthy Professor between 2007 and 2013, leaving this endowed professorship to Novoselov in 2012.

Also, between 2007 and 2010 Geim was an EPSRC Senior Research Fellow before becoming one of Royal Society Research Professors.

Geim holds many honorary professorships including those from Tsinghua University (China), Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (Russia), and Radboud University Nijmegen (Netherlands).

Geim's achievements include the discovery of a simple method for isolating single atomic layers of graphite, known as graphene, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Manchester and IMT.

Geim was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Konstantin Novoselov for his work on graphene.

He is Regius Professor of Physics and Royal Society Research Professor at the National Graphene Institute.