After earning an engineering degree in 1994 from the École Nationale Supérieure de Physique de Strasbourg, Benoît spent 18 months at MIT as a contingent scientist. There, he began his scientific work, which he continued upon returning to Strasbourg with a doctoral thesis in physical sciences, defended in 1998 at the Louis Pasteur University in Strasbourg.
He then moved to the NEC Research Institute in Princeton and later to Rockefeller University in Manhattan, where he worked in the laboratory of Professor Albert Libchaber, a pioneer in the interface of physics and biology, for four years.
Returning to France in 2002, he quickly joined the CNRS at ESPCI in Paris. Recognizing the potential and opportunities offered by nanoparticles, he recruited and led a team of 20 researchers focused on Quantum Dots within the school’s Laboratory of Physics and Study of Materials (LPEM). This team was named the “Parisian Quantum Dots.”
In this role, he successfully worked on improving synthesis methods for these nanoparticles and made significant discoveries regarding their geometry (nanoplatelets) and surface chemistry. Given the laboratory’s leadership in the field, it hosted the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the discovery of Quantum Dots, bringing together the 2023 Nobel Prize winners Louis Brus, Alexei Ekimov, and Moungi Bawendi.
The company Nexdot, aimed at developing and industrializing the laboratory’s research, was initially created within the ESPCI incubator. Due to the scale of its activities, it soon moved to larger laboratories in Romainville.
Now on leave from the CNRS to focus fully on developing Nexdot, Benoît Dubertret is a global leader in Quantum Dots research and applications. He has authored hundreds of publications with tens of thousands of citations. Discoveries made at Nexdot are protected by numerous patent families.