Age of nanotechnology: Queen of carbon

She invented breakthrough techniques for studying individual layers of carbon atoms. She discovered ways to capture the thermal energy of vibrating particles at well-defined “boundaries”,and then to use that heat to make electricity. She devised carbon fibres that are stronger than steel at a fraction of steel’s weight. Her research helped usher in the age of nanotechnology,the wildly popular effort to downsize electronic circuits,medical devices and a host of other products to molecular dimensions.

Dresselhaus recently won the 2012 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience,a $1 million honour that matches the purse size and Scandinavian provenance of a Nobel,if not quite the status. The new award joins a very long list of laurels,among them the National Medal of Science,the Enrico Fermi Award,the presidencies of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science,28 honorary doctorates and a stint in the Department of Energy under US President Bill Clinton.

Dresselhaus has also been a prominent advocate for women in physics and engineering,disciplines that are still short on high-ranking female faces and that were outright hostile to women when she began her career in the late 1950s. Today,at 81,the woman nicknamed the Queen of Carbon still works long hours in the lab,publishes prolifically,gives talks around the world and plays violin and viola in chamber groups.

Excerpts from an interview with her:

Your parents were immigrants from Poland,and your father often couldn’t find work. You’ve talked about how as a child you had no toys,sometimes no food and a single set of clothes that your mother washed for you each night. Now,with the Kavli award,you’re a bona fide member of the 1 per cent club. How does that feel?

You know,it’s a funny thing. Being a scientist,you don’t get a big salary,but it’s more than you need. When you’re busy enjoying what you’re doing,you don’t spend a lot of money. I wasn’t expecting prizes.

You have studied with other scientific giants,like Enrico Fermi.

That was at the University of Chicago,where I did my graduate work,and at the time it was the best university in physics. He had very few students and took a personal interest in all of them. We both lived near the university,and we ended up walking together early in the mornings. He had such a sharp mind. I learned how to think about physics from him.

You did your doctoral research on superconductivity,where electric current flows through a material and the electrons meet almost no resistance,right?

Superconductivity helped broaden my professional phase space. When I started my work,it was already known that magnetic fields could quench superconductivity. I found that the transition was not continuous,that superconductivity was initially enhanced in the presence of magnetic fields,then it would suddenly fall off. That was a little surprising,and so my graduate thesis attracted a bit of attention.

What inspired you to study carbon?

I thought it was an interesting material and it was amenable to the laboratory capabilities we had,in magneto-optics. I also liked having a problem that was not too popular. I had young children at the time. Everybody else was working on semiconductors. They thought carbon was too hard and not a fruitful area of study. The number of papers published on carbon when I started was essentially zero,and it’s been going up,up,up my whole career.

You paved the way for research that yielded two Nobel Prizes,for buckyballs in 1996 and carbon nanotubes in 2010. Do you feel a tiny bit slighted at not being among the winners?

Not at all. In both cases,they had ideas I missed,and they did great work. I’ve received a lot of recognition for my contributions,and I was a special guest at the Nobel ceremony in 2010.