(1) Scientists often discover clever methods to advance their research. In 2003, one ingenious physicist took a block of graphite, some Scotch tape and a lot of patience and fashioned a remarkable new wonder material that is a million times thinner than paper, more conductive than copper, and stronger than diamond. It is called grapheme, and physicists were wildly excited when the first research article about grapheme describing the newly developed carbon material appeared the following year. (2) Grapheme is a "wonder material", a super-conductive form of carbon, made from sheets a single atom thick. Physicists are so excited about it because it has the potential to completely transfigure the field of electronics and nanotechnology. (3) The man who first isolated grapheme is Andre Geim. He works in an English university, but studied at the Moscow Physical-Technical University and earned his PhD from the Institute of Solid-State Physics in Chernogolovka, Russia.
The word transfigure in Paragraph (2) is closest in meaning to .