The Nobel Prize in Physics for 2010 was awarded to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov for their work on graphene. Graphene is a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon, found naturally in graphite, so it’s surprising that it was only in 2004 that Geim and Novoselov discovered the "Scotch Tape technique" for isolating graphene – the technique being so called because it involves using Scotch Tape to remove graphene from graphite.
Because of its two-dimensional structure, graphene has a range of unusual properties, including electrical properties, that could be used in a wide range of applications. Although the raw material – carbon – is very common, the problem is likely to be synthesizing large enough crystals of graphene, since small graphene molecules tend to curl up and become other carbon allotropes -- the fullerenes, so named after the first of those to be discovered, buckminsterfullerene.
Works on graphene could go in a variety of places in Dewey. In chemistry, they would go in 546.681 Carbon. Works on graphene as an engineering material would go in 620.193 Nonmetallic elements, since that number has an including note for carbon: here "engineering" is interpreted broadly, and includes electronics and nanotechnology. Works on the chemical engineering of graphene would go in 662.92 Graphite and graphite products.
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