The result was a nanotube, which is a cylinder of carbon atoms just a few nanometers wide.It turns out that these nanotubes can conduct electricity even better than copper, and have been described as the strongest material ever tested.

This episode was made in partnership with The Kavli Prize, which honors scientists for breakthroughs in astrophysics, nanoscience, and neuroscience – transforming our understanding of the big, the small, and the complex. There’s an old proverb in science: we make progress by standing on the shoulders of giants. This is exemplified by Mildred Dresselhaus, who in 2012 was honored with the Kavli Prize in Nanoscience. She didn’t invent self-charging phones, improve solar cells, or make a better refrigerator, but she did lay the groundwork for others to make exciting discoveries decades later.

Before she was Professor Dresselhaus, she was Millie Spiewak, born in New York in 1930. She attended Hunter College in New York, where her talent was recognized by her physics teacher, the future Nobel laureate Rosalyn Yalow. She then went on to study at Cambridge University and the University of Chicago under the superstar physicist Enrico Fermi. In 1960, after becoming Dr Dresselhaus, she left her PhD work on superconductors, and started her pioneering work on carbon at MIT.

In the 1970s, Dresselhaus was one of the first people to study graphene, which is a two-dimensional form of graphite. She then pivoted to another weird form of carbon: buckminsterfullerene, or buckyballs. These are nano-sized spheres of just 60 carbon atoms, arranged like the shapes on soccer balls. It’s thought that they may be useful for many things, like targeted drug delivery.

In the 1990s, she had an idea to reduce the dimension of carbon even further: down to 1D. Her idea was to take buckyballs and ‘stretch’ them out by adding more carbon atoms. The result was a nanotube, which is a cylinder of carbon atoms just a few nanometers wide. It turns out that these nanotubes can conduct electricity even better than copper, and have been described as the strongest material ever tested. In 2012, Dr. Mildred Dresselhaus was the first person to be awarded an individual Kavli Prize for Nanoscience. This was given “For her pioneering contributions to the study of phonons, electron-phonon interactions, and thermal transport in nanostructures.” She showed that depending on how it’s made, a carbon nanotube can be either semiconducting or metallic. Her later work was on the so-called thermoelectric effect, where materials convert residual heat into electricity. She found out that being in 1D and 2D changed how particles of heat bounced off the material. This insight allowed for the production of more efficient thermoelectric materials. For all of this, she’s been nicknamed the ‘Queen of Carbon Science’ and received countless awards, including the prestigious Kavli Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Kavli Prize also awards a Neuroscience and Astrophysics Prize to honor researchers for their work in transforming our understanding of the brain and nervous system, and advancing our knowledge of the origin, evolution and properties of the universe. To learn more about the work of Dr. Dresselhaus, visit her page on the Kavli Prize website by clicking the link in the description. ♪ OUTRO