The great makeover

Just under two decades ago, Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov, physicists at The University of Manchester, performed a party trick that roused the scientific world. They peeled off sheets of carbon from graphite using sticky tape, thereby demonstrating a simple way to make graphene, a single layer of honeycombed carbon atoms. Their trick won them a Nobel Prize in 2010. Graphene became a wonder material, with scientists competing fiercely to find applications.

Raaghav Naagendran came across graphene in 2015, when he was a student at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia in Barcelona, a world centre for architecture and modern urban living. Architecture was in his bones; while at school, he had spent many holidays on construction sites with his father, a civil engineer. Raaghav had studied architecture for his undergraduate degree in Chennai and then joined the research-based Master's programme in Barcelona.