Nobel prize in chemistry: How the colourful world of quantum dots changed electronics and therapy

Alexei Ekimov, Louis Brus and Moungi Bawendi discovered and created nanoparticles called quantum dots, whose size dictates their properties

Imagine that everything in the world suddenly shrank to a size at the nano scale. Although it’s not intuitively apparent, many things would appear different. To cite examples used by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, gold earrings would suddenly turn blue, while a gold ring would look ruby red. Why should two gold ornaments take different colours? Because their different sizes would dictate their properties in the mysterious quantum world — a fact discovered, researched and exploited by the

A screen shows this year's laureates US Chemist Moungi Bawendi, US Chemist Louis Brus and Russian physicist Alexei Ekimov during the announcement of the winners of the 2023 Nobel Prize in chemistry in Stockholm on Wednesday. (AFP)