The Nobel Committee for Chemistry has supplied a paper entitled,
"Scientific Background to the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2023".
It includes the following paragraphs :-
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Nobel Committee for Chemistry
A qualitative breakthrough occurred when the development of molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) in
ultra-high vacuum, used in combination with mass spectrometry, enabled the deposition of
high-quality semiconducting thin films with precise control of thickness and composition. This
made it possible to optically resolve multiple quantum states in thin (< 5 nm) GaAs quantum wells
formed between AlGaAs layers, after selective chemical etching to remove the GaAs substrate.
These observations received much attention in the semiconductor physics community because it
had been previously considered impossible to make heterostructures with sufficient quality to
observe quantum phenomena so clearly.
By the early 1980s, the experimental observation of quantum phenomena in thin films was well
established. A theoretical understanding also was well developed, including that of the role of
Coulomb interaction (exciton effects) that become particularly pronounced in low-dimensional
structures such as quantum wells, where electron and hole wave functions are more likely to
overlap
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It's of personal significance to me because the paper references my previous boss, Ray, three times.
A brilliant Australian chemist and physicist born in Perth, in 1973 he was the first person to
experimentally observe the quantum well phenomena and he co-invented the quantum well laser.
Used in CD, DVD and Blu-ray players as well as barcode scanners,
quantum well lasers are also important because they are the basic active
element (the laser light source) of the optic fibers that power the Internet.
They made reading of this sentence possible.
Not one to talk about his many achievements, he was the smartest person I've ever known. He passed away in 2020.
Paper here :-
https://www.kva.se/app/uploads/2023/...cb871hdol5.pdf