Graphene Nobel Prize Committee Criticized For Inaccuracies

An anonymous reader writes "A leading researcher in the field of graphene has published a letter to the Nobel committee asking them to address significant problems with the factual accuracy of the supporting documents that laid the case for awarding Andrei Geim and Konstantin Novoselov the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics. Nature talks with letter author Walt de Heer about his claims that, aside from factual inaccuracies, the document diminishes the role of other groups and 'reads like a nomination letter.' At least one change has already been made by the committee."

Comments

value?

[phrostie]

Noble prizes no longer have any value or worth.
it's a social club, that is all

Re:value?

[levicivita]

You may well be referring to several categories of Nobel prizes (e.g. peace prize, or economics) which indeed have become (or have always been?) an avenue for the Nobel Committee to make political and cultural statements. That is rather transparent to any reader willing to go beyond CNN's coverage of the matter. However, the hard sciences' Nobel prizes are highly credible and are taken quite seriously. It is reasonable for people to expect a high standard, in my opinion. Factual inaccuracies in rendering the decisions cast an undesirable cloud on the decision making process.

Re:value?

[CheshireCatCO]

Nobel prizes (e.g. peace prize, or economics) which indeed have become (or have always been?) an avenue for the Nobel Committee to make political and cultural statements

The Nobel committee doesn't hand out the Bank of Sweden Prize for Economics. It's difficult to see how they'd then be using it to make statements.

However, the hard sciences' Nobel prizes are highly credible and are taken quite seriously.

The science Nobels have always been just as tentative and flawed as the Peace Prize. Einstein never was acknowledged for Relativity, for example. (He basically won it for the photoelectric effect work he did.) If you know many people in the sciences, you'll encounter more than a few with strong opinions about who should have gotten/shared/never received a prize.

Re:value?

[clarkkent09]

But why do they have to taint the science prizes by being so ridiculous with the peace prize? Kissinger, Mother Theresa, Arafat, Peres, Al Gore, Obama... Don't they realize that it seriously devalues the entire institution, not just the peace prize. I understand that it is given out by a different (Norvegian?) committee but Swedish Academy should separate itself from it or make them rename it or something.

Re:value?

[Jalfro]

Well the peace prize is inevitably going to be more subjective than the science ones. Essentially it is a politics prize, though they did apparently draw the line at giving it to Churchill for his war efforts (they gave him a Literature prize instead!). But there are strong reasons for the awards you mention: Kissinger for making peace with China (though ignoring his subversive activities against Chile); Arafat and Peres for their attempt to resolve the Middle East problem. The problem here is that they were a bit premature, as with Obama's prize, which he himself expressed doubts about. You might say it was the equivalent of giving Einstein a prize for 'what we think he'll discover next', but it also has to be seen as the expression of a kind of global sigh of relief at the exit of George Bush. Al Gore's prize was obviously for the ideas, rather than the man, while for Mother Theresa it was just the opposite.

Difficulties with science

[toQDuj]

Well, this is an understandable result of trying to hand out science nobel prizes. The science these days is more the effort of many groups competing and collaborating than that of a single individual. Picking out an individual therefore, worthy of the Nobel Prize, is bound to be inaccurate. The prizes should be given to groups instead...

Layman's summary

[vsage3]

I guess since IAAP (Physicist), I can try to translate some of the physics-ese. Here is the basic argument of the letter:

1. One of the reasons Geim got the Nobel was that he "discovered" graphene. However, the paper the committee is using to establish the date he discovered it (2004) in fact has no reference to graphene but rather graphite, it's well-known cousin. This is an important distinction because a few other groups have graphene papers around the same time.

2. Geim uses a method for creating graphene that is not commercially viable, yet has been credited with a revolution in electronics technology.

3. One of Geim's collaborators goes almost completely uncited although his data is used in the document and appears credited to Geim.

Re:Layman's summary

[DMiax]

1. One of the reasons Geim got the Nobel was that he "discovered" graphene. However, the paper the committee is using to establish the date he discovered it (2004) in fact has no reference to graphene but rather graphite, it's well-known cousin. This is an important distinction because a few other groups have graphene papers around the same time.

I am a physicist too and want to add a piece of info. The complainer purports that he had already obtained those results in graphene in 2004 but "did not realize it".

This claim is what makes me throw away his claims altogether. Even taking the statement at face value if he did not realize the contribution to the subject is exactly zero, or maybe even misleading.

I say this as one who was told "we basically did the same thing before you" about one of my papers when, in fact, they did not.

Re:Layman's summary

[mathfeel]

The "magic" in this case is not graphene, but rather good old Silicon Oxide. And that's why de Heer's work on SiC is not recognized and he is not credited for being first to isolate graphene. Let me explain

People make graphene all the time as long as they are working with carbon. Trouble is, it is impossible to distinguish a single layer from a double layer from a triple layer when they are so tiny. You can probably use an expensive AFM to map the topography, but that's a pricy and time consuming proporsition. On SiC, you chemically etch away a some Si atoms on the surface layers, leaving you with one, two, or probably three layers of graphene. But it is difficult to control chemistry. How do you know WHERE your 1, 2, 3 layers are even if you have made them?

That's where SiO2 comes in. In the case of prize winner, they were working with SiO2 substrate. Due to certain dielectric property turn out to have an interference effect with VISIBLE light that the reflected light from 0, 1, 2, 3 layers of graphene on top of it become distinguishable enough in color that the naked eye that a train graduate student can just look under an inexpensive microscopy and says here's a monolayer, here's a bilayer, and so on. (Beyond 4 layers it's hard to tell from bulk graphite). You cannot do that with SiC. Yes, the "scotch tape" method produced crappy graphene as far as electronic properties is concern (yet they still observer QHE at room temperature. That tells you how good a conductor graphene is), but that's why this method is not used any more pass 2006. But the discovery here is not graphene per se, but how to cheaply and easily identify it and as a result, the explosion of researches following their work.

So I suppose you can say these guys got lucky caz they were working with the right substrate. But that's science discovery for ya

REF: http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/0705.0091