ISN PI Prof. Moungi Bawendi shares the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

An ISN Principal Investigator since our founding, Moungi Bawendi, MIT's Lester Wolfe Professor of Chemistry, has been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He shares the award with Louis Brus of Columbia University and Alexei Ekimov of Nanocrystals Technology, Inc.
Prof. Moungi Bawendi stands in his back yard.

Moungi Bawendi, MIT's Lester Wolfe Professor of Chemistry and an ISN Principal Investigator, will share the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. (Photo: Jodi Hilton)

MIT Prof. Moungi Bawendi, a pioneering authority in the synthesis and design of quantum dots will share with two others the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Moungi has been a member of the ISN faculty since our 2002 founding, when he co-led an ISN-1 project for which the stated objective was "…to invent, develop, and validate new continuous flow synthesis techniques for complex engineered nanostructures (e.g., quantum dots) and to exploit these new techniques in the synthesis of novel engineered nanostructures."

Through subsequent ISN research portfolios, Moungi has been a common figure, acting as a PI on more than half a dozen core projects, contributing to each his world-leading expertise in quantum dot- and other nanocrystal-based technologies.

His ISN work has led to the discovery of QDs that allow IR imagers to see also in the UV, QDs that migrate to cancer cells for the improved visualization of cancer margins, QDs that have enabled the development of a low-cost terahertz camera, and QDs for use in a minuscule spectrometer for hyperspectral imaging. Furthermore, thanks to Moungi's ISN research, these quantum dots can be produced easily, reliably, and inexpensively.

All the while, his consistency, insight, and groundbreaking research have helped to shape a generation of MIT-trained scientists and engineers,  have informed the broader scientific community, and have illuminated the world at large.

For more information on Moungi Bawendi, see the MIT News article on his Nobel Prize-winning achievements.