Scotch tape and graphite flakes won a Nobel Prize in Physics
In 2004, physicists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov used ordinary sticky tape to peel graphite down to a single layer of carbon atoms, one atom thick. The result, graphene, is about 200 times stronger than steel by weight and conducts electricity better than copper. Many physicists had assumed a truly two-dimensional crystal couldn't stay stable. The pair won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics just six years after the tape experiment.