Stockholm: Three scientists have won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for “the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots”, the award-giving body said on Wednesday.
Nanoparticles and quantum dots are used in LED-lights and TV-screens and can also be used to guide surgeons while removing cancer tissue.
Scientists Moungi Bawendi, 62, Louis Brus, 80, and Alexei Ekimov, 78, will share the prize money of 11 million Swedish crowns ($A1.5 million).
Ekimov and Brus are early pioneers of the technology, while Bawendi is credited with revolutionizing the production of quantum dots “resulting in almost perfect particles. This high quality was necessary for them to be utilised in applications,” the academy said.
Earlier on Wednesday, the academy appeared to have inadvertently published the names of the three scientists it said had won this year’s chemistry prize.
Swedish public broadcaster SVT said the academy sent a press release by mistake early on Wednesday that contained the names of the winners.
“There was a press release sent out for still unknown reasons. We have been very active this morning to find out exactly what happened,” Hans Ellegren, the secretary-general of the academy, told the news conference where the award was announced. “This is very unfortunate, we do regret what happened.”
According to SVT, the press release said the prize went to three scientists for the “discovery and synthesis of quantum dots.”
Bawendi told the news conference that he was “very surprised, sleepy, shocked, unexpected and very honoured.”