Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus and Alexei Ekimov receive the prize for their work on glowing nanoparticles that are used in fields from electronics to surgery.
He explains that the quantum effects that give the particles their name come from how electrons and their quantum energy levels change when particles get smaller and smaller. As quantum dots reach the nanoscale, the electrons start to be confined by the size of their surroundings. Once that size becomes smaller than the natural volume that an electron can move around in, the electrons respond by changing their energy levels. This in turn changes how those systems interact with light.
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