This seminar discusses advances in the fabrication and optoelectronic properties of quantum-confined solid-state materials from the two viewpoints of bottom-up (e.g. wet-chemistry or molecular beam epitaxy) vs. top-down methods. The overarching hypothesis is that these communities, which currently act largely separately due to the different chemical approaches, face many identical physical challenges in the application of these nanomaterials for optoelectronics, such that an interdisciplinary exchange holds for a high degree of synergy.