THE NOBEL COLLOQUIUM

THE 2014 NOBEL PRIZES IN PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY

2014 Nobel Prize in Physics: New light to illuminate the world

Prof.dr. Maria A. Loi

Photophysics and OptoElectronics, Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials

Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura received this year the Nobel Prize in Physics to have invented a new energy-efficient and environment-friendly light source – the blue light-emitting diode (blue LED). As pointed out by the Nobel Committee this year prize is given in the spirit of Alfred Nobel, to a Physics discovery, which has been and will be of great benefit for the mankind. In my presentation, I will describe the background of this discovery and the technical details that make it exceptional. I will conclude with an overview of newer types of light emitting devices to try to imagine how we will illuminate the world in the future.

2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry: How the optical microscope became a nanoscope

Dr. Thorben Cordes

Molecular Microscopy, Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials

Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell and William E. Moerner were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014 for having bypassed fundamental physical limitation stipulating that an optical microscope can never yield a resolution better than 0.2 micrometres. Using the fluorescence of molecules, scientists can now monitor the interplay between individual molecules inside cells and track down cell division at the nanolevel using the techniques pioneered by the awardees. In my presentation I will summarize the scientific discoveries that lead to the development of the novel imaging methods. I will highlight the two distinct ways that Stefan Hell (“STED-microscopy”), as well as Eric Betzig and William Moerner (single-molecule based microscopy) use to achieve optical “super-resolution” below 0.2 micrometers.