Nobel Winners Used Keithley

Keithley Instruments Inc., which specializes in advanced electrical test instruments and systems, congratulates Drs. Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, scientists at the University of Manchester in England, who were just awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in physics for their research on graphene, a single-atom-thick form of carbon with outstanding physical, electrical and chemical properties. In their research, Geim and Novoselov employed several Keithley Instruments products, including the Model 2400 SourceMeter instrument and the Model 2182A Nanovoltmeter.

Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, winners of the 2010 Nobel Prize in physics, used the Keithley Model 2400 SourceMeter in their research on graphene. (Image: Keithley Instruments)

“It has given everyone here enormous satisfaction to know that our products have been a part of a ground-breaking research effort like this one,” said Mark Hoersten, Keithley’s vice president of marketing. “Coincidentally, three Keithley employees were actually in Geim and Novoselov’s labs on a routine customer visit when the call came in from the Nobel Prize committee informing Geim and Novoselov of their win.”

Geim and Novoselov first isolated graphene, which has a hexagonal, honeycomb-like structure, in 2004. Potential applications of this material, sometimes described as “the perfect atomic lattice,” include the development of new superstrong and lightweight materials for making satellites, aircraft and automobiles. Electronics applications may include the development of ultrafast and ultrahigh-bandwidth transistors, innovative displays, biodevices, single-molecule gas detectors and ultracapacitors.

“They’ve been using two of our Model 2400 SourceMeter instruments and one of our Model 2182A Nanovoltmeters to characterize both the resistivity and the very high carrier mobility of the thinnest crystalline material ever isolated,” said Robert Green, one of the Keithley employees on hand when the prize was announced. “Ultrasensitive, precision sourcing and measurement equipment such as the Model 2400 SourceMeter instrument, which can output very low levels of current, and the Model 2182A, which can measure the smallest voltages, are essential to making repeatable and reliable measurements."

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