The winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry were Frenchman Moungi G. Bawendi, American Louis E. Brus, and Russian Alekseyi I. Ekimov for "the discovery and Synthesis of quantum dots". So, who is Alexey Ekimov?
Ekimov was born in 1945 in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Solid-state physicist Ekimov discovered semiconductor crystals known as quantum dots at the Vavilov State Institute of Optics in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Ekimov continues his work at "Nanocrystals Technology Inc." in the USA.
Details of life story
Alexey Ivanovich Ekimov, born February 28, 1945, is a solid-state physicist and Nobel Prize-winning scientist in Chemistry who discovered semiconductor nanocrystals known as quantum dots while working at the Vavilov State Institute of Optics.
Alexey Ivanovich Ekimov (born 1945) is a Russian solid-state physicist and a pioneer in nanomaterials research. He discovered the semiconductor nanocrystals known as quantum dots in 1981 while working at the Vavilov State Optical Institute. In 2023, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this discovery.
He was awarded the 1975 USSR State Science and Engineering Prize for his work on electron spin orientation in semiconductors.
Ekimov has been living and working as a scientist in a private company in the USA since 1999.
What are quantum dots?
Quantum dots are nano-sized crystals and semiconductors. We can say that quantum dots are huge artificial atoms that can contain from a few atoms to thousands of atoms.
They are semiconductor particles up to a few nanometers in size, with optical and electronic properties that differ from those of larger particles due to quantum mechanics. If a quantum dot is illuminated with UV light, the electron in the quantum dot can rise to a higher energy level. If so, this process corresponds to the transition of an electron from the valence band to the conduction band. This excited electron returns to the valence band and releases its energy.