STOCKHOLM: Scie­ntists Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus and Aleksey Ekimov won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery of tiny clusters of atoms known as quantum dots, widely used today to create colours in flat screens, light emitting diode (LED) lamps and devices that help surgeons see blood vessels in tumours.

The prize-awarding academy said that the research of the three US-based scientists on quantum dots, which in size ratio have the same relationship to a football as a football to Earth, had “added colour to nanotechnology.” “Resear­chers believe that in the future they could contribute to flexible electronics, tiny sensors, thinner solar cells and encrypted quantum communication,” the academy said in a statement.

But a rare leak led to the winners’ names being mistakenly sent to media outlets hours before they were officially announced, prompting an apology from the awards’ overseers. Nobel leaks are rare, with the various prize-awarding academies going to great lengths to keep the winners’ names under wraps until the announcements.

One of the “fascinating and unusual properties” of quantum dots is that they change light colour depending on the particle size, while keeping the atomic structure unchanged, said Johan Aqvist, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.

Bawendi said he felt “very surprised, sleepy, shocked, unexpected and very honoured” by the award. Brus said it was so unexpected that he ignored the first half a dozen phone calls he received from people trying to break the news to him.

Earlier on Wednesday, the academy appeared to have inadvertently shared the prize winners’ names. “It was very unfortunate that the press release got out and we still don’t know why it happened,” said Hans Ellegren, the academy’s secretary general. He added it did not affect the choice of laureates.

The quantum dot technology, which enabled high-definition QLED TVs sold by Samsung, Sony or TCL, traces its roots to early 1980s work by Ekimov.

“I could never have thought you could make these things at such a large commercial scale,” Bawendi said in a press conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he is a professor.

Ekimov was a pioneer, discovering that the colour of glass changes with the size of copper chloride molecules contained in it and that sub-atomic forces were at play.

Speaking to this news agency on the phone, 78-year-old Ekimov, who was born in the Soviet Union and later moved to the US, marvelled at the latest flat-screen technology, something he did not envision during his work in the 1980s. “Remember what a TV was back then!” he said, laughing.

A few years later, Brus extended the work to microscopic particles suspended in liquids.

“It’s a collaborative effort,” Brus said in an interview at his home in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. “There’s not a single ‘eureka!’ moment.” In 1993, Bawendi revolutionised the production of quantum dots and improved their quality.

Among other uses, the research enabled LEDs that shine more like natural sunlight, avoiding the bluish light they were previously shunned for.

Published in Dawn, October 5th, 2023