The story so far: Alexei I. Ekimov, Louis E. Brus, and Moungi G. Bawendi have been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize for chemistry “for the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots”.
What is a quantum dot?
A quantum dot is a really small assembly of atoms (just a few thousand) around a few nanometres wide. The ‘quantum’ in its name comes from the fact that the electrons in these atoms have very little space to move around, so the crystal as a whole displays the quirky effects of quantum mechanics — effects that otherwise would be hard to ‘see’ without more sophisticated instruments. Quantum dots have also been called ‘artificial atoms’ because the dot as a whole behaves like an atom in some circumstances.
