The Manchester-based Nobel laureate Professor Sir Kostya Novoselov has taken part in creating a video animation art project shedding light on graphene's unique qualities and potential. Professor Sir Kostya Novoselov worked with artist Mary Griffiths to create Prospect Planes – a video artwork resulting from months of scientific and artistic research and experimentation using graphene.

Prospect Planes will be unveiled as part of The Hexagon Experiment series of events at the Great Exhibition of the North 2018, Newcastle, on August 17. The six-part Hexagon Experiment series was inspired by the the Friday evening sessions that led to the isolation of graphene at The University of Manchester by Novoselov and Sir Andre Geim.

Providing a fascinating insight into scientific research into graphene, Prospect Planes began with a graphite drawing by Griffiths, symbolizing the chemical element carbon:

• This was replicated in graphene by Sir Kostya Novoselov, creating a microscopic 2D graphene version of Griffiths’ drawing just one atom thick and invisible to the naked eye.

• Griffiths and Novoselov used Raman spectroscopy to record a molecular fingerprint of the graphene image, using that fingerprint to map a digital visual representation of graphene’s unique qualities.

• Prominent features within the topographic digital image produced using Raman spectroscopy were mapped by Griffiths to create an animated image which shifts between two and three dimensions, helping to raise awareness of the qualities which make graphene a transformational material.