2023 Nobel prize in chemistry goes to trio behind quantum dots

This year’s chemistry Nobel prize has been awarded jointly to nanotechnology pioneers, Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus, and Alexei Ekimov for the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots. However, news of their win was leaked around two hours before the official announcement was made, in a press release sent out in error to a Swedish newspaper by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

When asked about the mistake, Hans Ellegren, secretary general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said it was ‘very unfortunate’ that the news was leaked. ‘We deeply regret what happened for sure, there was a press release sent out for still unknown reasons, we have been very active this morning to try to find out what happened but we don’t know … we deeply regret that it happened.’