New York City ? It is the thinnest and strongest material known to mankind — no thicker than a single atom and 100 times tougher than steel. Could graphene be the next plastic? Maybe so, says one of two scientists who won a Nobel Prize on Tuesday for isolating and studying it.

Faster computers, lighter airplanes, transparent touch screens — the list of potential uses runs on. Some scientists say we can’t even imagine what kinds of products might be possible with the substance, which hides in ordinary pencil lead and first was extracted using a piece of Scotch tape.

Two Russian-born researchers shared the physics Nobel for their groundbreaking experiments with graphene, which is a sheet of carbon atoms joined together in a pattern that resembles chicken wire.

Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov of the University of Manchester in England used Scotch tape to rip off flakes of graphene from a chunk of graphite, the stuff of pencil leads.