Even for 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry co-laureate Moungi Bawendi, “science is hard” and sometimes involves repeatedly banging your head against the wall.
Last Thursday, Bawendi, a professor of chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, delivered the 2025 John Howard Appleton Lecture organized by the Chemistry Department. In the lecture, Bawendi discussed his work in the synthesis of quantum dots, for which he received the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Sixteen Appleton lecturers have been Nobel laureates, according to Professor of Chemistry and Department Chair Lai-Sheng Wang in the lecture’s opening remarks.
According to Bawendi, “a quantum dot is a nanometer-sized crystal of semiconductor.” In his talk, he explained how electrons’ wave-particle duality — the quantum mechanical phenomenon in which electrons operate as both waves and particles — allows nanoparticles to release energy in the form of visible fluorescent light after excitement.
Quantum dots are particularly fluorescent and can be manipulated to emit light of any color of the rainbow, according to Bawendi.
“I had an incredibly stimulating career because quantum dots as a new material … can touch almost any field,” Bawendi said in an interview with The Herald.
Bawendi made his first quantum dot breakthrough during his postdoctoral years working under Louis Brus, one of the researchers who discovered quantum dots in the 1980s and one of Bawendi’s co-laureates. Bawendi was specifically tasked with investigating the properties of quantum dots.
To pursue this, he placed quantum dots into different liquid forms of Lewis bases, and in all but one of these experiments, nothing happened. But in that one unique flask, the dot began to grow and turned an orange color.
Bawendi was thrilled but initially found himself unable to consistently replicate these unexpected results or understand where they came from.
“I spent three months through March of 1989 just hitting my head against the wall,” he told The Herald.
In the following years, Bawendi moved his research to MIT and continued to explore how he managed to grow the dots in the first place.
But “nothing was working,” he told The Herald. “We spent six months, and I just thought my career was over.”
Eventually, he realized two issues with his methods: When he originally succeeded in growing the dots, he had unknowingly used an oxidized form of the base, but in his subsequent attempts to replicate the outcome, Bawendi did not take this into account. Additionally, he was using less pure quantum dots than he had used in his initial experiments.
After fixing these issues, Bawendi finally hit the sweet spot — using the oxidized form of the base, he was able to make the quantum dots grow to specific sizes in a controlled environment.
After Bawendi figured out how to grow and manipulate quantum dots, his discovery exploded into industry. They are now widely used in LED displays to enhance color vibrancy and saturation, and they also play a key role in new technologies such as bioimaging and solar cells.
“The average time, in chemistry, from discovery to Nobel Prize is 30 years,” Bawendi said. “In my case, it was exactly 30 years.”
Associate Professor of Chemistry Ou Chen, who studies quantum dots, worked in Bawendi’s lab as a postdoctoral assistant. Chen said that he appreciated the academic freedom in the lab, which set him up for success as “a fully independent researcher after leaving Moungi’s lab.”
He added that though he originally believed that becoming a professor was beyond his skillset, Bawendi told him that he had the “potential.”
“That really meant a lot to me, and it really changed my life,” Chen said during his introduction of Bawendi at the lecture.
Regarding advice to students now, Bawendi said the most important thing is to “be true to your interests.”
“I think it’s a terrible thing to make a decision on what other people think or what you think is hot at the time,” Bawendi told The Herald. “What’s hot today disappears tomorrow, but your interests are going to last.”
Lecture attendee Huyen Nguyen ’28 said Bawendi was “inspirational” and shared that she enjoyed learning about how Bawendi’s work connected to topics from her classes.
“I’ve always followed (Bawendi) throughout the years,” Nguyen said. “It was super fascinating that I met the person who basically found all of this.”
Ian Ritter is a senior staff writer covering graduate schools and students. He is a sophomore from New Jersey studying Chemistry and International and Public Affairs. When he’s not at the Herald, you can find him playing clarinet or explaining the rules of kickball to confused listeners.
