Although he won the "Chemistry Prize", Ekimov's usual title is actually "Solid State Physicist." Today, the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was announced. The winner isMoungi G. Bawendi,Louis E. Brus andAlexey I. Ekimov, for their discovery and synthesis of quantum dots.

As usual, we collect gossip about the lives of Nobel Prize winners. But this time, the biggest gossip comes from the Nobel Prize itself——The list of this year’s Chemistry Prize winners is suspected to have been leaked in advance.


An email was leaked丨Screenshot of NYT website

Swedish public broadcaster SVT stated,The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences mistakenly issued a press release and revealed the names of all the winners. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences denied it, saying that the list had not yet been decided and could not be trusted. The list of Nobel Prize winners in Chemistry was announced a few hours later.Exactly the same as the leaked version.

This kind of accident is very rare in the history of the Nobel Prize. After the list of winners was officially announced, reporters present also asked about the leaked list. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the reason for the leak of the list was not yet known.

As for the three Nobel Prize winners, they also have quite exciting news - for example,As a chemistry prize winner, one of them only scored 20 points in the chemistry exam.

Chemistry Prize Winner, Chemistry Test Only 20 Points

Moji Bavandi was born in France and grew up in France, Tunisia and the United States. Louis Bruce, who won the award together this time, was his boss, and Bawandi once worked as a postdoc under Bruce. Now, he is a professor at MIT.

In an interview, Bavandi was asked which one he would choose between friends, work, and sleep. Bawandi said he had never had enough sleep in his life.Bawandi imparts his experience of not sleeping to everyone: "If you like to work, you go to work." But after receiving the call to win the award, Bawundi’s first words were:"I was sleepy and in shock."


After winning the Nobel Prize, Bawundi took a photo with his dog Phoebe at home | Reuters

Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Bawundi only scored 20 points in his first university chemistry exam. "I had just entered Harvard at that time, and I planned to use my high school study methods to cope with college studies, which was 'no method at all,'" Bawundi said. "I was frightened, very depressed, and planned to drop out." Fortunately, he did not drop out.

Bawandi doesn't like to eat lunch, and often makes do with it or doesn't eat at all, but it's okay if he eats it with his students.After eating, he also likes to play with the students.

Bavandi’s advice to young people is:Don't take failure too seriously. Many seemingly insurmountable things will eventually be solved. In addition, no decision can change a person's life. We always have many choices.

I have never written a research plan and budget

Louis Bruce was born in the United States in 1943. He discovered that he liked chemistry and physics in high school, and his experience working part-time in a hardware store made him very interested in tools and machines.This would benefit him in future experiments, but he didn't realize it at the time.

He never thought he would become a scientist;Bruce always thought that after completing college and military service, he would become a businessman like his father. Unexpectedly, his passion for science grew stronger, and after graduation he chose to study for a Ph.D. at Columbia University. After completing his Ph.D., he returned to the Navy as a lieutenant and served as a scientific staff officer. Here he began to study lasers and their applications in solid-state physics, which set the direction for his later research career.


Louis Bruce|pnas.org

Four years later, he left the Navy and joined the world-famous Bell Labs. Bruce did the work that later led to the discovery of quantum dots at Bell Labs.

Bruce has worked at Bell Labs for 23 years. He likes it here very much: "This is the best place to conduct physical science research." It is easy to understand why Bruce would have this idea - he has never written a research plan or budget during his 23 years at Bell Labs. New ideas can only be carried out through informal discussions with management.

Outside of work, Bruce enjoys gardening in his garden. He said:I like digging holes in the ground, not only does it tire you out, but you can also get some results to show for your work - unlike sometimes when you immerse yourself in scientific research for months and get no reward.

Fortunately, Bruce's research paid off in many ways. He has won many awards, such as when the Kavli Award for Nanoscience was first awarded in 2008, he was one of the winners; and of course today's Nobel Prize. And he may have lost a lot. For example, when searching for Bruce's photos, you will find,The top of his head is smooth in every photo...


Winning the Kavli Nanoscience Prize in 2008, Bruce is on the left, another winner Sumio Iijima is on the right, and Kavli himself is in the middle | Håkon Mosvold Larsen/SCANPIX

The first person in the world to discover "quantum dots"

Although he won the "Chemistry Prize", Ekimov's usual title is actually "Solid State Physicist". As early as 1975, he won the "Soviet State Prize for Science and Engineering". His PhD major was in semiconductors. During this period, many optical methods were used as tools to evaluate semiconductor materials. When he used the same method to observe colored glass, he discovered and created "quantum dots" during the process of the glass being heated and cooled to varying degrees. He published this result in a Soviet scientific research journal in 1981 andBecame the first person in the world to discover "quantum dots".


The first person to discover "quantum dots"丨nextdot

Bruce, who had just won the award with him, independently achieved the same results and discoveries two years later in the United States. However, the "Iron Curtain" of the Cold War at that time almost completely isolated the information on the scientific research results of the two people.

Later, Ekimov's career spanned Russia and the United States, and moved to the United States in 1999 to serve as the head of a private company Nanocrystals Technology Inc. Chief Scientist to date.


Screenshot of Ekimov’s 1981 paper

References

[1]https://thetech.com/2008/08/29/bawendi-v128-n35

[2]https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/quantum-dots-and-a-bright-future/3008136.article

[3]https://nexdot.fr/en/history-of-quantum-dots/

[4]https://www.optica.org/History/Biographies/bios/Aleksey_Ekimov#：~：text=Aleksey%20Ekimov%20recieved%20his%20PhD，the%20discovery%20of%20quantum%20dots．

[5]https://phys.org/news/2023-10-scientists-nobel-prize-chemistry-tiny.html

[6]https://www.kavliprize.org/louis-brus-autobiography

[7]https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0409555102#

Source of this article:Guoke.com, original title: "The winner of this chemistry award only scored 20 points in the chemistry exam"