Q: What is a quantum dot, and what about this discovery merits the Nobel Prize in Chemistry?
Quantum dots are semiconductor nanocrystals that showcase quantum mechanical behaviors due to their tiny size, which is usually between 2 to 10 nanometers. Given that they’re semiconductors, they can move electricity around, like we see in more traditional ‘bulk’ material semiconductors, but these dots stand out due to their quantized energy levels, which enable them to absorb and emit light of specific wavelengths that can be finely tuned just by using a single parameter, the particle’s size.
For example, a Cadmium Selenium quantum dot can be tuned to represent nearly every color on the visible light spectrum by changing its size. This size variation affects the gap between its high-energy-level conduction band and low-energy-level valance band. Driving these unique optical and electronic properties is the quantum confinement effect: As the quantum dot gets smaller, its band gap increases.
Therefore, a quantum dot embodies the combination of this quantum confinement happening simultaneously in all three spatial dimensions. The crux here is that these systems are miniaturized to such an extent that every single particle is either comparable to or tinier than the typical range over which electrons usually spread out, or delocalize.
In the quantum universe, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle is a fundamental tenet. It says that the exact location and energy of a quantum particle cannot be pinpointed simultaneously. Knowledge of one aspect inevitably compromises the knowledge of the other, but, by encapsulating a particle within a confined geometry, or space, the energy-level separations within the system naturally react. Miniaturizing entities leads to a shift in their energy states, which is essentially the confinement aspect.
But the work that’s been recognized with this Nobel Prize in Chemistry is a nod to the fact that these nanoparticles can be engineered using novel tricks—novel in the sense that much of the work done on semiconductors since their inception in the 1950s and 1960s has shown this to be done with compositional changes relying on large machinery, deposition tools, and fabrication infrastructure, whereas here it can be approached with a chemical synthesis.
Q: Your work with Bawendi has been critical to advancing the field of nanotechnology and highly regarded by the larger scientific community. Could you tell us about the work and how it feels to see all this recognition and support culminate in a Nobel?
The project I took on as a graduate student was to develop methods to chemically synthesize quantum dots, purify them, and develop procedures to systematically characterize their structural properties, their chemical properties, and some of the basic optical features. My thesis was the primary content that was featured in a 1993 Journal of the American Chemical Society paper, along with one Science paper that came out a couple of years later that showed that self-assembly natural forces driving organization could organize these tiny semiconductor particles into and a whole host of other materials. Additionally, under Moungi’s leadership, my fellow graduates David Norris and Manoj Nirmal were using those materials for many more advanced spectroscopy studies mapping out their properties and helping to understand the potential of the systems. This earlier work really gave us the control of multiple systems and established a potentially scalable route for making quantum dots. It’s also one of the areas of research my lab is still interested in today.
As you can imagine, I’m thrilled by the announcement. It’s an incredibly exciting time for us, I’m so happy for Moungi and have sent messages to congratulate the winners and reconnect with co-workers. I’m sure their inboxes must be flooded with thousands and thousands of messages, seeing as professor Cherie Kagan and I have also been getting calls and visitors to our door. I was in Moungi’s first group when he just started as a professor, and Cherie was in the very next cohort.
This Q/A was written by Nathi Magubane. To read the full interview, please visit Penn Today.
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