This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to scientists who worked decades to make your TV watching experience better, among other things.
Moungi G. Bawendi, Louis E. Brus and Alexei I. Ekimov received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing quantum dots, customizable nanoparticles which have different properties depending on their size.
"Quantum dots have many fascinating and unusual properties. Importantly, they have different colors depending on their size," Chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry Johan Åqvist said.
You’re likely looking at light emitted from quantum dots right now, as many modern computer-monitors and televisions using QLED technologies use quantum dots to create RGB colors of each pixel.
But that’s not all. The quantum dot technology is used in biomedical research to visualize molecules. In the future, quantum dots could be used in new areas of quantum communications, flexible electronics, miniature sensors as well as in improving solar cell technologies.
