Louis E.

Brus
Louis Eugene Brus[1] (born August 10, 1943)[2] is an
American chemist, and currently the Samuel Latham Louis Brus
Mitchell Professor of Chemistry at Columbia
University. He is the co-discoverer of the colloidal
semi-conductor nanocrystals known as quantum
dots.[3] In 2023, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in
Chemistry.

Early life and education

Louis Eugene Brus was born in 1943 in Cleveland,
Ohio, United States of America. During high school in
Roeland Park, Kansas, he developed an interest for
chemistry and physics.[4]
Brus in 2008
He entered Rice University in 1961 with a Naval
Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) college Born August 10, 1943
scholarship, which required him to participate in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
NROTC activities at sea as a midshipman. In 1965, he Education Rice University (BS)
graduated at Rice with a B.S. degree in chemical Columbia University (PhD)
physics, and then moved to Columbia University for Known for quantum dots
his doctoral research.[4] For his dissertation, he worked Brus equation
on the photodissociation of sodium iodide vapor, under Awards Irving Langmuir Prize in
the supervision of Richard Bersohn.[4] After obtaining Chemical Physics (2001)
his Ph.D. degree in chemical physics in 1969, Brus National Academy of Sciences
returned to the Navy as a lieutenant and served as a (2004)
scientific staff officer in collaboration with Lin Ming- R. W. Wood Prize (2006)
chang, at the United States Naval Research Laboratory Kavli Prize (2008)
in Washington, D.C.[4] Willard Gibbs Award (2009)p
NAS Award in Chemical
Under the recommendation of Bersohn, Brus left the
Sciences (2010)
Navy permanently and joined AT&T Bell Laboratories
Bower Award and Prize for
in 1973, where he did the work that led to the
Achievement in Science (2012)
discovery of quantum dots.[4] In 1996, Brus left Bell
Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2023)
Labs and joined the faculty in the Department of
Scientific career
Chemistry at Columbia University.[4]
Fields Chemistry
Chemical physics
Work on quantum dots Nanotechnology
Brus is a foundational figure in the research and Institutions US Naval Research Laboratory
development of quantum dots. Quantum dots are tiny Bell Telephone Laboratory
semiconducting crystals whose nanoscale size gives Columbia University
them unique optical and electronic properties.[5] Thesis Lifetime Shortening of Na(32p)
and T(72S) Quenched by
Brus was independently the first to synthesize them in
Halogens (https://www.proquest.
a solution in 1982. At the time, he was studying
com/docview/30236521
organic photochemistry on cadmium sulfide particle
9/) (1969)
surfaces using pump–probe Raman spectroscopy,
Doctoral Richard Bersohn
looking for possible applications for solar-energy.[6][7]
advisor
He noticed that the optical properties of the crystals
changed after leaving them for 24 hours.[7] He
attributed this change in band gap energy to Ostwald ripening when the crystal increased size.[7]

Brus provided the theoretical framework for understanding the behavior of quantum dots in terms of
quantum size effects. He identified the connection between the particle size of semiconductors and the
wavelength of the light they emit,[8][9][10][11][12] now known as the Brus equation.[6]

Brus tried to contact researchers in the Soviet Union. It was in 1990, that he finally met Alexey Ekimov
and Alexander Efros, who had first developed the semiconductor nanocrystals in glass in 1981 under
more rudimentary conditions, however their research was not available in the United States.[7]

At Bell Labs, Brus worked with postdoc researchers Paul Alivisatos and Moungi Bawendi in a research
project with organometallic synthetic chemist Michael L. Steigerwald on reducing the size of the
quantum dots.[4]

Awards and honors

Brus was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1998,[13] a member of the
United States National Academy of Sciences in 2004,[14] and is a member of the Norwegian Academy of
Science and Letters.[15]

He received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Association of Rice University Alumni in 2010.
He was co-recipient of the 2006 R. W. Wood Prize of the Optical Society of America "for the discovery of
nanocrystal quantum dots and pioneering studies of their electronic and optical properties" shared with
Alexander Efros and Alexey Ekimov.[16][17] He also received the inaugural Kavli Prize for nanoscience
along with Sumio Iijima in 2008 for "for their large impact in the development of the nanoscience field of
the zero and one dimensional nanostructures in physics, chemistry and biology".[18] In 2009 he was
awarded the Willard Gibbs Award "for his leading role in the creation of chemical quantum dots".[19]
Brus was chosen for the 2010 NAS Award in Chemical Sciences. In 2012 he received the Franklin
Institute's Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science,[20] and was selected as a Clarivate
Citation laureate in Chemistry "for discovery of colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals (quantum
dots)".[21]
In 2023, Brus was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with Ekimov and Moungi Bawendi "for
the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots".[22] Bawendi had worked as a postdoc with Brus, when they
were in Bell Labs.[23]

Selected publications
Rossetti, R.; Brus, L. (November 1982). "Electron-hole recombination emission as a probe
of surface chemistry in aqueous cadmium sulfide colloids" (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1
021/j100220a003). The Journal of Physical Chemistry. 86 (23): 4470–4472.
doi:10.1021/j100220a003 (https://doi.org/10.1021%2Fj100220a003). ISSN 0022-3654 (http
s://search.worldcat.org/issn/0022-3654).
Brus, L. E. (December 1, 1983). "A simple model for the ionization potential, electron affinity,
and aqueous redox potentials of small semiconductor crystallites" (https://doi.org/10.1063/1.
445676). The Journal of Chemical Physics. 79 (11): 5566–5571.
Bibcode:1983JChPh..79.5566B (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1983JChPh..79.5566B).
doi:10.1063/1.445676 (https://doi.org/10.1063%2F1.445676). ISSN 0021-9606 (https://searc
h.worldcat.org/issn/0021-9606).
Brus, L. E. (May 1, 1984). "Electron–electron and electron-hole interactions in small
semiconductor crystallites: The size dependence of the lowest excited electronic state" (http
s://doi.org/10.1063/1.447218). The Journal of Chemical Physics. 80 (9): 4403–4409.
Bibcode:1984JChPh..80.4403B (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1984JChPh..80.4403B).
doi:10.1063/1.447218 (https://doi.org/10.1063%2F1.447218). ISSN 0021-9606 (https://searc
h.worldcat.org/issn/0021-9606).
Brus, Louis (June 1986). "Electronic wave functions in semiconductor clusters: experiment
and theory" (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/j100403a003). The Journal of Physical
Chemistry. 90 (12): 2555–2560. doi:10.1021/j100403a003 (https://doi.org/10.1021%2Fj1004
03a003). ISSN 0022-3654 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0022-3654).
Nirmal, M.; Dabbousi, B. O.; Bawendi, M. G.; Macklin, J. J.; Trautman, J. K.; Harris, T. D.;
Brus, L. E. (October 1996). "Fluorescence intermittency in single cadmium selenide
nanocrystals" (https://www.nature.com/articles/383802a0). Nature. 383 (6603): 802–804.
Bibcode:1996Natur.383..802N (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1996Natur.383..802N).
doi:10.1038/383802a0 (https://doi.org/10.1038%2F383802a0). ISSN 1476-4687 (https://sea
rch.worldcat.org/issn/1476-4687). S2CID 4315737 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusI
D:4315737).
Bawendi, M G; Steigerwald, M L; Brus, L E (October 1990). "The Quantum Mechanics of
Larger Semiconductor Clusters ("Quantum Dots")" (https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.pc.41.10
0190.002401). Annual Review of Physical Chemistry. 41 (1): 477–496.
Bibcode:1990ARPC...41..477B (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1990ARPC...41..477B).
doi:10.1146/annurev.pc.41.100190.002401 (https://doi.org/10.1146%2Fannurev.pc.41.1001
90.002401). ISSN 0066-426X (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0066-426X).
Michaels, Amy M.; Nirmal, M.; Brus, L. E. (November 1, 1999). "Surface Enhanced Raman
Spectroscopy of Individual Rhodamine 6G Molecules on Large Ag Nanocrystals" (https://pub
s.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja992128q). Journal of the American Chemical Society. 121 (43):
9932–9939. doi:10.1021/ja992128q (https://doi.org/10.1021%2Fja992128q). ISSN 0002-
7863 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0002-7863).
Lee, Changgu; Yan, Hugen; Brus, Louis E.; Heinz, Tony F.; Hone, James; Ryu, Sunmin
(May 25, 2010). "Anomalous Lattice Vibrations of Single- and Few-Layer MoS 2" (https://doi.
org/10.1021/nn1003937). ACS Nano. 4 (5): 2695–2700. arXiv:1005.2509 (https://arxiv.org/a
bs/1005.2509). doi:10.1021/nn1003937 (https://doi.org/10.1021%2Fnn1003937).
ISSN 1936-0851 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/1936-0851). PMID 20392077 (https://pub
 med.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20392077). S2CID 6543876 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusI
D:6543876).

References
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+Eugene+Brus+Aug.+10+,+1943)
3. Brus, Louis E. (1984). "Electron–electron and electron-hole interactions in small
semiconductor crystallites: The size dependence of the lowest excited electronic state" (htt
p://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/jcp/80/9/10.1063/1.447218). The Journal of Chemical
Physics. 80 (4403): 4403–4409. Bibcode:1984JChPh..80.4403B (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.e
du/abs/1984JChPh..80.4403B). doi:10.1063/1.447218 (https://doi.org/10.1063%2F1.44721
8). Retrieved January 30, 2015.
4. Davis, Tinsley (February 2005). "Biography of Louis E. Brus" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p
mc/articles/PMC547879). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 102 (5): 1277–
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5. Singh, Suchita; Dhawan, Aksha; Karhana, Sonali; Bhat, Madhusudan; Dinda, Amit Kumar
(November 29, 2020). "Quantum Dots: An Emerging Tool for Point-of-Care Testing" (https://
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7761335). Micromachines. 11 (12): 1058.
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6. Kafel, A.; Al-Rashid, S. N. Turki (January 1, 2023). "Study Using the Brus Equation to
Examine How Quantum Confinement Energy Affects the Optical Characteristics of Cadmium
Sulfide and Zinc Selenide" (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2023IJN....2250034K/abstrac
t). International Journal of Nanoscience. 22 (4): 2350034–120.
Bibcode:2023IJN....2250034K (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2023IJN....2250034K).
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October 20, 2023.
8. Sanderson, Katharine; Castelvecchi, Davide (October 4, 2023). "Tiny 'quantum dot' particles
win chemistry Nobel" (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03048-9). Nature. 622
(7982): 227–228. doi:10.1038/d41586-023-03048-9 (https://doi.org/10.1038%2Fd41586-023
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9. Efros, Alexander L.; Brus, Louis E. (April 27, 2021). "Nanocrystal Quantum Dots: From
Discovery to Modern Development" (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acsnano.1c0139
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bawendi-brus-ekimov). Science News.
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uantum-dots-used-in-tv-displays-and-cell-studies-win-chemistry-nobel). Science.
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|last2= has generic name (help)
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External links
Louis E. Brus (https://www.nobelprize.org/laureate/1030) on Nobelprize.org

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