On November 19, a workshop titled “Quantum Dots: Promises and Challenges,” a joint collaborative session between Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) and KAIST, was held at Fusion Hall of the KI Building (E4). Renowned scholars from the United States and Korea working in quantum dot research were invited to give talks on the latest progress and to discuss challenges ahead in this field.
The workshop covered various subjects in the progress of quantum dot research from both theory and application aspects. Quantum dots are semiconductor nanocrystals whose size is comparable to or smaller than the characteristic length scale of bound electron-hole pairs in any given semiconductor. The first session featured presentations on quantum dot-based displays. Professor Changhee Lee of Seoul National University presented cutting-edge devices made out of quantum dots as light emitting materials. Doctor Shinae Jun from Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT), discussed developments in quantum dot displays made by her pioneering corporate research group. She mentioned that there remained challenges in improving device efficiency and reducing cost in order to realize this technology.
Other sessions featured presentations that discussed the use of quantum dots in various other applications. For example, Doctor Sang-Il Seok from Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT) gave an insightful talk on highly efficient light harvesting semiconductor nanocrystals, showing the possibility of using quantum dots as a viable solar cell material.
Scientific and theoretical views on quantum dots were presented in this session as well. Doctor Victor Klimov, Director of the Center for Advanced Solar Photophysics at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), discussed the advanced spectroscopic analysis of colloidal nanocrystal quantum dots. Intriguing physical phenomena in quantum dots, such as carrier multiplication and luminescence blinking, were introduced. Doctor Jeffrey Pietryga from LANL talked about the surface characteristics of quantum dot nanoparticles from a chemistry viewpoint.
Professor Doh Chang Lee from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at KAIST was one of the organizers of the workshop. In an interview, he summarized that “the workshop was a great success in a sense that the presentations not only were apprehensible to laypersons and students but also comprehensive enough for experts and scientists alike.” The workshop was sponsored by the Multiscale Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Center of the BK21+ program.
Shin Hum Cho
shinhum@gmail.com