Invention of blue LEDs receives physics Nobel

The 2014 Nobel Prize for physics has been awarded to a trio of scientists in Japan and the US for the invention of blue light emitting diodes (LEDs).

Professors Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura made the first blue LEDs in the early 1990s.

By combining blue light with existing red and green LEDs, this enabled a new generation of bright, energy-efficient white lamps.

The winners will share prize money of eight million kronor (£0.7m).

They were named at a press conference in Sweden, and join a prestigious list of 196 other Physics laureates recognised since 1901.

Prof Nakamura, who was woken up in Japan to receive the news, told the press conference, “It’s unbelievable.”

Making the announcement, the Nobel jury emphasised the usefulness of the invention, adding that the Nobel Prizes were established to recognise developments that delivered “the greatest benefit to mankind”.

“These uses are what would make Alfred Nobel very happy,” said Prof Olle Inganas, a member of the prize committee from Linkoping University.

The committee chair, Prof Per Delsing, from Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, emphasised the winners’ dedication.

“What’s fascinating is that a lot of big companies really tried to do this and they failed,” he said. “But these guys persisted and they tried and tried again – and eventually they actually succeeded.”

 

2013 – Francois Englert and Peter Higgs shared the prize for formulating the theory of the Higgs boson particle.

2012 – Serge Haroche and David J Wineland were awarded the prize for their work with light and matter.

2011 – The discovery that the expansion of the Universe was accelerating earned Saul Perlmutter, Brian P Schmidt and Adam Riess the physics prize.

2010 – Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were awarded the prize for their discovery of the “wonder material” graphene.

2009 – Charles Kuen Kao won the physics Nobel for helping to develop fibre optic cables.

BBC 

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