Optica Congratulates 2025 Nobel Chemistry Prize Recipients
About Optica
08 October 2025
Optica Congratulates 2025 Nobel Chemistry Prize Recipients
Laureates Kitagawa, Robson and Yaghi pioneered the development of metal-organic frameworks, cagelike molecules with wide potential applications.
Optica, Advancing Optics and Photonics Worldwide, congratulates Susumu Kitagawa (Kyoto University, Japan), Richard Robson (University of Melbourne, Australia), and Omar M. Yaghi (University of California, Berkeley, USA), recipients of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work pioneering and developing metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). The vision and efforts of the three laureates have created an exciting new platform with applications across a vast range of areas—emphatically including optics and photonics.
While the most familiar uses of MOFs lie in areas like large-scale hydrogen storage, CO2 capture, catalysis and drug delivery, the inherent tunability of these molecular “cages” has led researchers to actively experiment with MOFs as cutting-edge optical and photonic materials. Such studies have focused on fashioning functional materials by substituting optical and photonic elements, molecules and particles—such as photoresponsive metals, luminescent ligands, photoswitchable linkers, dyes and quantum dots—into various sites in the open, roomy MOF structure. The result of such investigations could be new applications in ultrasensitive photodetection; optical biosensing, bioimaging and diagnostics; photocatalysis; nonlinear optics; LEDs, and more.
MOFs have truly been an idea with impact. Optica again congratulates Drs. Kitagawa, Robson and Yaghi on this well-deserved recognition.
About Optica
Optica, Advancing Optics and Photonics Worldwide, is the Society dedicated to promoting the generation, application, archiving and dissemination of knowledge in the field. Founded in 1916, it is the leading organization for scientists, engineers, business professionals, students and others interested in the science of light. Optica's renowned publications, meetings, online resources and in-person activities fuel discoveries, shape real-life applications and accelerate scientific, technical and educational achievement. Discover more at: Optica.org
Media Contact
