Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus, and Alexei Ekimov share award for developing nanoparticles with beguiling properties determined by their size
The Nobel chemistry committee demonstrated how quantum dots of different size glow with a range of colors when stimulated by ultraviolet light.Three researchers have been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work on quantum dots—tiny crystals a few dozen atomic diameters wide that have highly tunable optical and electronic properties.
Theorists speculated about the powers of such tiny structures as long ago as the 1930s, in the early days of quantum mechanics. The theory, which describes the behavior of the atomic world, implied that crystals a millionth the size of a pinhead would act like a box, confining electrons in a way that alters their properties. A smaller box would compress the electron’s wavelike properties to shorter wavelengths.
Still, defects in these early quantum dots—especially their variable sizes—kept them from wide commercialization. In 1993, Bawendi and his team, also at Bell Labs, devised a way to make high-quality crystals of a well-defined size that would produce sharp, vivid light of one specific color. But researchers are testing other applications. In medicine, doctors want to use quantum dots as tissue-specific beacons to hunt for tumors or other problems. For example, quantum dots covered in organic materials to make them more biocompatible inside cells and blood could map blood vessels and lymph nodes or monitor changes in tumors. The dots could also help track the movements of drugs throughout the body.
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