Trio wins Chemistry Nobel for ‘quantum dots’

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Last Updated06/10/2023

The 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Moungi G. Bawendi, Louis E. Brus and Alexei I. Ekimov for the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots.

Quantum dots have unique properties and now spread their light from television screens and LED lamps.
They catalyze chemical reactions and their clear light can illuminate tumor tissue for a surgeon
Researchers have primarily utilized quantum dots to create coloured light.
They believe that in the future quantum dots can contribute to flexible electronics, miniscule sensors, slimmer solar cells and perhaps encrypted quantum communication.
Today quantum dots are an important part of nanotechnology’s toolbox.
Researchers believe that in the future they could contribute to flexible electronics, tiny sensors, thinner solar cells and encrypted quantum communication
Last year the prestigious Prize was cinched by Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and K. Barry Sharpless for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry.
Their work in click chemistry has been used to develop pharmaceuticals, mapping DNA while bioorthogonal chemistry refined the pharmaceuticals used to treat cancer.
The Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology was granted to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman
their “discoveries concerning nucleoside base modification that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.”

It is a nanoparticle made of any semiconductor material such as silicon, cadmium selenide, cadmium sulfide, or indium arsenide.
They are essentially small crystals of nanometer-size dimensions – they’re about 20,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.
They have distinctive electrical conduction properties that are determined by the incredibly small size and structure.
When these QDs are hit with a specific frequency of radiation, their changeable structure, tailored by scientists, means that they can be finely tuned to emit a specific frequency of radiation
changing the wavelength of the light source can achieve the same effect.
In the dark, the QDs remain inactive. When bombarded by visible light, they become energetically “excited.