Nanosys Co-Founder and MIT Professor Moungi Bawendi Publishes Landmark Paper on the Development of High Efficiency Quantum Dot LEDs for Display Applications

Palo Alto, CA - (January 3, 2003). Nanosys Co-founder and Professor of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Dr. Moungi Bawendi, announced the publication of a landmark paper in the December 19, 2002 issue of the prestigious scientific journal, Nature. The paper was authored by Drs. Bawendi and Vladimir Bulovic, an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, along with graduate students Seth A. Coe and Wing Keung Woo at MIT’s Center for Materials Science and Engineering. The paper describes a scientific breakthrough by the M.I.T. researchers, enabling them to combine plastic electronics with high-performance inorganic semiconductor nanocrystals to create a high-efficiency hybrid light-emitting structure; a nanocrystal-organic light emitting diode (Nano-OLED) that will one day replace liquid crystal displays (LCDs) as the flat-panel display of choice for consumer electronics.

Professor Bawendi, one of the world’s leaders in nanotechnology, focuses research on the synthesis, electronic properties and optical properties of semiconductor nanocrystals (quantum dots) for applications ranging from biology to optoelectronics to nanoelectronics. Nanocrystals, also referred to as artificial atoms, are nanometer-sized semiconductor particles for which the optical and electronic properties can be precisely selected and tuned during synthesis by simply controlling the size of the particle.

Unlike traditional LCDs, which must be lit from behind, Nano-OLEDs generate their own light. Depending on their size, the nanocrystal can be tuned to emit any color in the rainbow, and the colors they produce are far more saturated and pure than those of traditional light-emitting sources. As a result, nanocrystal-based displays will be brighter, higher-contrast and have more accurate color reproduction than any display technology currently available.

Perhaps even more impressive is that the nanocrystal-based devices described in the Nature article contained only a single layer of nanocrystals (only 3 nanometers thick) to produce an intensely luminescent device. This represents a 20-fold improvement in the amount of material needed to produce an efficient OLED device.

“The importance of this publication goes far beyond its applications in the display market (which are extremely important on their own)”, explained Dr. Stephen Empedocles, nanotechnology expert and Director of Business Development at Nanosys, Inc. “It demonstrates the capability of nanomaterials to truly separate the function of a material from its structure. By changing the size of the semiconductor particles inside a device, you can select any color you want. Chemically, every color is identical to every other, so there is no change in the performance, processing or manufacturing of different color devices. This is totally different than what you find for other luminescent display technologies, where every color is chemically different from every other; requiring complex procedures to incorporate multiple colors into a single device. This separation of structure and function is one of the truly unique aspects of nanotechnology”.

Dr. Bawendi also agrees that the impact of this technology extends far beyond just displays. “In addition to using these materials for thin, bright and flexible flat-panel displays”, said Dr. Bawendi, “this technology enables applications ranging from near-IR telecommunications transceivers to invisible military communications and friend-or-foe identification, to solar energy production”.

Earlier this year Nanosys licensed a broad portfolio of over twenty five patent and patent applications covering inorganic semiconductor nanocrystals from MIT. These patents cover fundamental aspects of nanotechnology ranging from Nano-OLEDs to spectral encoding using semiconductor nanocrystals to one of the most fundamental nanomaterials composition of matter: the core-shell nanocrystal. These patents complement Nanosys’ other licenses with Harvard University, Regents of the University of California Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories.

About Professor Bawendi

Dr. Bawendi is a Scientific Founder of Nanosys, Inc. and Member of the Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Bawendi is a Professor of Chemistry at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Bawendi is one of the pre-eminent visionaries in nanochemistry with a focus on creating zero dimensional semiconductor and magnetic quantum materials, and understanding the physical characteristics of molecular devices. His laboratory interests include the chemistry, physics, and applications of nanostructures and their assemblies. Dr. Bawendi is the recipient of the following awards: the Sackler Prize in the Physical Sciences, the Presidential Young Investigator Award, the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation New Faculty Award, the Coblentz Award Winner for Molecular Spectroscopy, a Packard Fellow, Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, and the Harvard University Wilson Prize for Chemistry. Professor Bawendi is a Scientific Founder of Quantum Dot, a privately held company that is focused on the novel detection of nanodots for health related applications. Professor Bawendi received an A.M. in Chemical Physics from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Dr. Bawendi worked as a Post Doctoral fellow at Bell Laboratories before accepting his academic appointment.

About Nanosys

Nanosys, Inc. is a disruptive platform technology company focused on the development of nanotechnology-enabled systems. These systems incorporate novel and patent-protected zero- and one-dimensional nanocrystals such as nanowires and nanoparticles (quantum dots, quantum rods, etc.) as their principal active elements. These systems exploit the fundamentally unique electronic, magnetic, optical, chemical, processing and integration properties associated with materials having nanometer-scale dimensions. Devices and systems constructed from these materials will revolutionize a broad range of industries from life sciences (molecular sensing) to optoelectronics (LEDs, lasers, photovoltaics, integrated photonics, and displays) to nanoelectronics (non-volatile ultra-fast memory, nano logic circuits and quantum computing). These devices will offer radical and discontinuous performance improvements in speed, sensitivity, power consumption, device density, cost, and integration, as well as enabling new applications never considered using traditional materials. By combining the world’s scientific leaders in nanomaterials, integration and applications with experienced commercial engineers and technologists and a team of seasoned entrepreneurs, Nanosys is turning the promise of nanotechnology into reality.

Back to top