Personable robots, advanced prosthetics and entrepreneurship
figure prominently in campus visit. Scientists at MIT and the US
Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory have
demonstrated that nanoscale semiconductor particles called
"nanocrystal quantum dots" offer the necessary performance for
efficient emission of laser light. The research appeared in the
October 13 issue of Science. The demonstrated performance opens
the door for developing novel optical and optoelectronic
devices, such as tunable lasers, optical amplifiers and light-
emitting diodes from assemblies of these invisibly small
particles. "Our results provide a proof-of-principle and should
motivate the development of nanocrystal quantum-dot-based lasers
and amplifiers," said Los Alamos' Victor Klimov, who led the
research effort at Los Alamos. The MIT team was led by Moungi
Bawendi, professor of chemistry. The quantum dots used in the
study were developed and synthesized at MIT and provided to the
Los Alamos team. The stimulated emi