Hunter McDaniel of UbiQD on engineering the tiniest particles to have an enormous impact on lighting, agriculture, solar power and more

Macro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)

Today's guest is Hunter McDaniel of the company UbiQD. As in ubiquitous, but the "QD" stands for quantum dots. Today's episode is one of those wide ranging talks that has become a hallmark of some of our best M4Edge discussions. We cover not just what a quantum dot is and what UbiQD does, but the Department of Energy's National Laboratory system and the importance of basic science in the innovation process. We talk about solar power generation from your tinted windows, and we even talk about cannabis. UbiQD makes quantum dots, which are so small they're kind of impossible to imagine as you'll hear Hunter describe. Their size; their existence at the nanoscale or, more precisely, the quantum scale makes them effective at absorbing a broad spectrum of light and then converting that energy into emitted light of specific colors that you can choose or "tune" with a precise manufacturing process. So, for example, you can tune the dots to emit an orange kind of late or blue late or whatever you want. Much like our 2020 kickoff guest, Alison Kopf of Artemis, Hunter and UbiQD have chosen the indoor agriculture industry as a good first target market, including the fast booming cannabis market. But the potential for QD is enormous, including energy efficiency and lighting, solar power from the walls and windows of your skyscrapers, thinking and pigments and more. It's pretty fascinating; imagine these tiny, tiny things that could have a huge, huge impact on how we power our economy.
https://www.lanl.gov/
https://www.energy.gov/national-laboratories