Trio wins Nobel Prize in chemistry for work on quantum dots

He said he was "very surprised, sleepy, shocked and very honoured", adding that he had not heard the news before the Academy rang him.

Quantum dots are extremely tiny - just a few millionths of a millimetre across. They are an artificially-created collection of semiconducting nanoparticles that glow blue, red or green when exposed to light.

Their exact size determines the colour of light they emit when given energy. The smallest quantum dots emit higher energy waves and produce blue light, and biggest dots release lower energy waves creating red light, with the middle sizes creating the colours in between.

"For a long time nobody thought you could make such small particles," but the winners this year managed to do just that, the Academy said when announcing the prize.

The three scientists are US-based. Russian physicist Alexei I. Ekimov, 78, is credited with first discovering quantum dots in the 1980s, and US chemist Louis E. Brus, 80, then realised the crystals could be developed floating in fluid.

Paris-born Moungi G. Bawendi invented a method for making custom-made quantum dots, opening up more commercial and scientific uses.

"Quantum dots are thus bringing the greatest benefit to humankind," said the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

"Researchers believe that in the future they could contribute to flexible electronics, tiny sensors, thinner solar cells and encrypted quantum communication - so we have just started exploring the potential of these tiny particles," it added.