Louis E. Brus, discoverer of quantum dots, dies at 82

Louis E. Brus, a chemist and Nobel laureate who discovered quantum dots, died on Jan. 11 at his home in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y. He was 82. The cause was complications of myelodysplastic syndrome, his daughter Elizabeth Brus said. Dr. Brus discovered quantum dots while at Bell Laboratories in 1983, finding that tiny crystals of cadmium sulfide absorbed different wavelengths of light depending on their size.

He had left a slurry of nanocrystals on a bench overnight and found they had grown slightly and shifted which colors they absorbed. In 2023 he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Moungi Bawendi and Aleksey Yekimov. Quantum dots were among the first demonstrations that a material's physical properties could depend on size rather than composition, and they have been used to enhance the vibrancy of TV and computer screens and to map organs inside the body.

They may also someday power more efficient solar cells and advanced methods of information encryption. After leaving Bell Labs in 1996, Dr. Brus joined Columbia University's chemistry faculty and later studied carbon nanotubes and graphene. Born on Aug. 10, 1943, in Cleveland, Dr.

Brus earned a Ph.D. at Columbia in 1969 after attending Rice University and served at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory before joining Bell Labs in 1973. He was recognized with the 2008 Kavli Prize and election to the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Inventors, retired in 2018 but remained active at Columbia.

Key Topics

Science, Louis E. Brus, Quantum Dots, Bell Laboratories, Columbia University, Moungi Bawendi