Dmitri Talapin, nanocrystal pioneer
July 20, 2026
5 min read
25 years of research expanding what quantum dots are, how we synthesize them, and what they can do for industry.
Written by Genevieve Michaels
Illustrations by João Marcus Felix
"What I love about quantum dots is that it's a field with incredible breadth. It brings together concepts from very different areas of chemistry, physics, engineering, and even biology. It's arguably one of the most diverse fields there is."
Dmitri Talapin has worked on quantum dots for 25 years. The first, foundational quantum dots paper was published in 1981, in the former Soviet Union. Through the mid and late 90s, landmark breakthroughs came out of MIT’s Bawendi lab and Alivisatos Lab at UC Berkeley.
During this time, Dmitri was growing up in Belarus, where he loved chemistry and physics from an early age. His career hasn’t just matured alongside the field; it’s contributed to creating quantum dots as we know them today.
I had an opportunity to grow up with this field. I remember the early days, when we had much less understanding and knowledge. I was fortunate to learn from the pioneers, and I really want to give credit to the people who’ve been around me all these years.”
"The education I got in that early post-Soviet era in Belarus was absolutely top-notch. It helps me to this day," he remembers. But after the fall of the Soviet Union, things changed. “In a way, that Soviet scientific research community has dissolved,” he says.
In 2000, Dmitri started his PhD at Germany’s Hamburg University with Horst Weller, a leader in quantum dot research in Western Europe. A few years later, he was working with top quantum dot experts in the United States: doing postdoctoral research at IBM with Chris Murray, formerly of the Bawendi Lab, and helping build the Molecular Foundry at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
“The field was extremely small,” he remembers. “Only a few labs could synthesize nanocrystals, and the required chemicals were expensive and dangerous. Dimethylcadmium is still one of the most dangerous chemicals you may tolerate in the lab.”
Frontier chemistry at Talapin Lab
In 2007, Dmitri started Talapin Lab at the University of Chicago. Talapin Lab’s research sits at the frontiers of chemistry, exploring what’s possible before industrial applications are even on the horizon.
I believe the role of universities is to test crazy, early-stage ideas for industry to eventually invest in. That was always my interest and my driver.”
So far, that’s led to two major breakthroughs that have pushed quantum dots forward: inorganic ligands, and novel precursors and solvents.
A new molecular profile
A quantum dot has two components. The nanocrystal forms an inorganic core, wrapped in a layer of organic molecules. This coating controls how the dots work together; for example, making them soluble in liquid.
But the organic shell also prevents quantum dots from being used in some applications, like electric devices, because it limits their conductivity. "Each quantum dot is wrapped in a layer, almost like chicken fat, that prevents electrons from jumping dot to dot,” Dmitri explains.
Dmitri’s breakthrough was a non-organic coating for quantum dots. This outer shell has the same benefits as organic molecules, but less of their limitations. It doesn’t impede conductivity in the same way, and it allows the dots to be photo-cured and set into permanent patterns.
Novel chemical processes, new horizons
Dmitri has also expanded what quantum dots can be, and how it’s possible to synthesize them. For decades, the field has synthesized nanocrystals from semiconductors like cadmium selenide or indium phosphide, using organic solvents that boil as hot as 350°C. It’s a process Dmitri describes as “boiling in oily soup.”
But some of the most technologically prominent semiconductors, like gallium arsenide and gallium nitride, require higher temperatures to form nanocrystals, beyond what any organic liquid can sustain. Talapin Lab is exploring new solution-phase processes that make this possible, such as using molten inorganic salts instead of organic solvents
We are developing new classes of nanocrystals, synthesizing colloidal quantum dots from materials that have never been used in that way.”
The research is still highly exploratory, but it’s possible that these novel quantum dots could be more stable, even under extreme conditions. Others could be manufactured without using heavy metals, which have risks that aren’t always acceptable.
From academia to industry
Already, Dmitri’s innovations have left the space of academic experimentation. Several startups and classes of technology have spun out from Talapin Lab over the last two decades.
Inorganic ligands have opened up entirely new applications for quantum dots, like transistors, infrared detectors, and thermoelectric devices. “There’s now a pretty large community working in this space and publishing in top journals,” says Dmitri. “There are startups developing printable thermoelectric modules and they all use inorganic ligands.”
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Talapin Lab also developed the DOLFIN (Direct Optical Lithography of Functional Inorganic Nanomaterials) method for photo-patterning nanocrystals: a new alternative to traditional photolithography, which is usually done with polymers.
Polymers are everywhere; they’ve become an extremely pervasive material. The same thing will happen with nanoparticles. As we discover new forms of quantum dots, they’ll become building blocks for new kinds of commercial products.”
Scientific collaboration at the edge of human knowledge
Dmitri sees nanocrystals as an entire new class of macromolecule, like polymers, with yet-to-be-seen benefits for society. Twenty-five years into his research, the potential is only just unfolding. Looking back, Dmitri gives his scientific community ample credit for his breakthroughs: not just professors and mentors, but his lab’s students and postdocs, too.
“Science is rarely a one-man show. When I do some soul-searching about how we arrived at the milestones I'm proud of, every time it came down to two or three people with the right mindset, in the right place, at the right time.”
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