Moungi Gabriel Bawendi is an American chemist of French and Tunisian descent. Born in Paris in 1961 to Hélène Baouendi (née Bobard) and Mohammed Salah Baouendi. He is the Lester Wolfe Professor at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

. Bawendi is one of the original participants in the field of colloidal quantum dot research, and among the most cited chemists of the last decade. He became a

Clarivate Citation Laureate Clarivate Citation Laureates formerly Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates is a list of candidates considered likely to win the Nobel Prize in their respective field. The candidates are so named based on the citation impact of their published resear ...

in 2020. He received his A.B. in 1982 from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

and his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1988 from

the University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the be ...

working with Karl F. Freed and

Takeshi Oka , , is a Japanese-American spectroscopist and astronomer specializing in the field of galactic astronomy, known as a pioneer of astrochemistry and the co-discoverer of interstellar trihydrogen cation (). He is now R.A. Milliken Distinguished Servi ...

Research Group

The Bawendi Research Group is largely focused on the study of colloidal semiconductor

quantum dots Quantum dots (QDs) are semiconductor particles a few nanometres in size, having optical and electronic properties that differ from those of larger particles as a result of quantum mechanics. They are a central topic in nanotechnology. When the ...

, with a growing interest in organic

fluorophores A fluorophore (or fluorochrome, similarly to a chromophore) is a fluorescent chemical compound that can re-emit light upon light excitation. Fluorophores typically contain several combined aromatic groups, or planar or cyclic molecules with sev ...

. Research projects are generally divided into four categories: 1. Spectroscopy, 2. Synthesis, 3. Biology, and 4. Devices. In 1993 the group reported what is currently the most widely used method in quantum dot synthesis, called the rapid injection method. Later research focused extensively on the spectroscopic study of quantum dots, and lasers, while recent progress has addressed many challenges in synthesis, biological application of

nanomaterials * Nanomaterials describe, in principle, materials of which a single unit is sized (in at least one dimension) between 1 and 100 nm (the usual definition of nanoscale). Nanomaterials research takes a materials science-based approach to nan ...

, and

solar cell A solar cell, or photovoltaic cell, is an electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect, which is a physical and chemical phenomenon.

research. In addition, Bawendi is interested in the spectroscopy of single quantum dots with single molecule spectroscopy.

References

Living people Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science faculty 21st-century American chemists Harvard University alumni 1961 births {{US-chemist-stub