2023-10-04 11:50:04
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2023 to researchers Moungi Bawendi (1961, France), Louis Brus (1943, USA) and Alexei Ekimov (1945, Russia) for the discovery and development of quantum dots, “nanoparticles so small that their size determines their properties.” The decision, leaked by mistake hours before the official announcement, has been widely applauded by the scientific community. Especially since this discovery was used to develop LED lights and television screens, it is already being applied to guide high-precision operations and could one day light the way for the search for new medicines.
BREAKING NEWS
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2023 #NobelPrize in Chemistry to Moungi G. Bawendi, Louis E. Brus and Alexei I. Ekimov “for the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots.” pic.twitter.com/qJCXc72Dj8— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 4, 2023
As explained by the Nobel committee, the work of Bawendi, Brus and Ekimov has meant a true scientific revolution. “Quantum dots have many fascinating and unusual properties and bring great benefits to humanity,” explains Johan Åqvist, president of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry. Experts believe that, one day, these types of tools could contribute to development of flexible electronics, increasingly tiny sensors, thinner solar cells and could even improve encrypted quantum communication. “We have just begun to explore the potential of these tiny particles,” they say from the panel that awarded this prestigious award this Wednesday.
“It is a Nobel Prize that focuses on new materials that do not exist in nature and in which we design the properties,” explains Iván Mora Seró, professor of Applied Physics at the Jaume I University of Castellón, about the importance of quantum dots. “[El descubrimiento de los puntos cuánticos] has opened a new field in which there is a lot of science because swith custom-made materials“adds the expert in statements to the Science Media Centre.
The names of this year’s winners, as well as their revolutionary works, are well known in physics, nanotechnology and, in general, materials science laboratories. Its main discoveries took place in the eighties and nineties and now, more than forty years later, they are still very present in research centers around the world. Currently, Bawendi is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyBrus is professor emeritus at the Columbia University and Ekimov works for the company Nanocrystals Technology Inc.
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The chemistry award is the last of the scientific Nobel prizes awarded in this edition. On Monday it was announced that the winners of the Medicine category were Katalin Kariko (1955, Hungary) and Drew Weisseman (1959, United States) for the development of the technology that allowed the first vaccines against covid-19 to be developed. On Tuesday, in the Physics branch, the work of the researchers was awarded Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krauzs and Anne L’Huillier for studying something as fascinating as the path that light takes in a trillionth of a second.
In this edition, only two of the eight awarded professionals are women. Karikó, for her part, was the thirteenth woman awarded the Medicine prize and L’Huillier the fifth selected in the Physics category. In chemistry, the discipline awarded this Wednesday, there is only eight women whose careers have been distinguished with this prestigious recognition. In total, in all scientific categories, it is estimated that in more than a century of history Women have barely received 3% of the awards of the Nobel Prize.
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