Shuji Nakamura wins ?1m for invention of LEDs

If you've ever turned on a computer, you can thank Shuji "Fiat Lux" Nakamura for the LED that glows back at you. This University of California, Santa Barbara-based professor was recently awarded the 2006 Millennium Technology Prize by the government of Finland yesterday for his work on light emitting diodes. The previous winner of the first prize went in 2004 to Tim "The Webfather" Berners-Lee -- and Nakamura, like Sir Tim and each future winner of this biannual prize, takes home a cool €1 million. Nakamura has also worked on the blue laser diode that is used in the reading of Blu-ray and HD DVD discs. Maybe we can now get Nakamura to use his smarts to go after the Nobel Peace Prize by solving the Blu-ray / HD DVD format war.

[Via BBC]

[Corporate @ Sep 10th 2006 11:20AM]

Nick Holonyak Jr. invented the LED in 1962...

[abm @ Sep 10th 2006 11:41AM]

Not to grammar-nazi, but the phrase "recently awarded the [prize] ... yesterday for his work" is kind of weird. Was it recently or was it yesterday? Sorry to complain, good read otherwiase.

[Corris @ Sep 10th 2006 11:41AM]

The guy won the prize for inventing the (quoted from bbc)

"The award recognised his inventions of blue, green and white light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and the blue laser diode."

not inventing LED's themselves

[Pacey @ Sep 10th 2006 11:44AM]

Corporate, it never says he invented them.

He was being honored for his work on LEDs. You think LEDs were as powerful in 1962 as they are now, or even as inexpensive?

[schtum @ Sep 10th 2006 11:55AM]

Pacey, read the first sentence:
"If you've ever turned on a computer, you can thank Shuji "Fiat Lux" Nakamura for the LED that glows back at you."

Most computers (unless they're very recent) don't use the types of LEDs invented by Nakamura. The "green" LEDs on most computers are a pale yellow-green. The ones Nakamura invented are a true, emerald green. Depending on where you live (I know New York has been rolling them out over the past few years) you might have seen them in traffic signals. Personally, I don't own anything with one of his LEDs in it.

[schtum @ Sep 10th 2006 11:57AM]

Correction: My cell phone has blue (and possibly white) LEDs. Thank you Mr. Nakamura!

[slyecho @ Sep 10th 2006 12:31PM]

>Most computers (unless they're very recent) don't use the types of LEDs invented by Nakamura.

Mine has blue, and it's from last year. End of argument.

[Stellar @ Sep 10th 2006 1:15PM]

yes yes.. thank you Shuji. And we can all thank god for nikola tesla for pretty much everything else we have today; otherwise we'ld still be playing pickup sticks with out buttcheeks :P

[Atanas Boev @ Sep 10th 2006 1:45PM]

"...Nobel Peace Prize by solving the Blu-ray / HD DVD format war"

LOL

[schtum @ Sep 10th 2006 1:49PM]

The post:
"If you've ever turned on a computer, you can thank Shuji "Fiat Lux" Nakamura for the LED that glows back at you."

Me:
"Most computers (unless they're very recent) don't use the types of LEDs invented by Nakamura."

Slyecho:
"Mine has blue, and it's from last year. End of argument."

Computers weren't invented last year. End of argument.

[tmc @ Sep 10th 2006 1:56PM]

Wow that's inaccurate!
Holonyak invented the LED!

[exvaxman @ Sep 10th 2006 2:14PM]

I agree - engadget needs editors that understand English and how to write titles. I was sitting with one of the people who was there for the first L.E.D. and the first production run of them. My mistake - I read the title to him. I then had to deal with an hour tirade over how history is revisionist and how people are still ignorant enough to believe that Edison invented the light bulb. Sorry Engadget - you just lost a reader for your stupid reporting.

[Maximilian Springer @ Sep 10th 2006 3:36PM]

"needs editors that understand English and how to write titles. I was sitting with one of the people who WAS there for the first L.E.D."

LOL

Me was there too...

How about reading those high school grammar books?

[Maximilian Springer @ Sep 10th 2006 3:36PM]

I didn't care to read your comments...so plz don't blame me for repeating some chewed through comment.

First of all, there is grammar mistake; "recently...., yesterday", #34 in my elementary book.
Otherwise, this article is speckled with faulty info. Nakasomething was awarded for his work on creating an LED technology that allows to cover the whole spectrum without the use of a filter (eg. red or green acryl). The first LED was invented much earlier; in fact I own one...
And also the the price was awarded in recognition of his effort on the BluRay tech. not just randomly because he's an awesome guy. Don't get me wrong, I love your articles, but this one wasn't a very good example of informed journalism.

[Jerry Kindall @ Sep 10th 2006 5:04PM]

Nakamura IS a deeply impressive researcher even though he didn't actually invent the LED. Wired profiled him a while back. And by "a while back" I mean in 1995. At that point Nakamura was fresh off inventing the first blue LED and was beginning work on a blue laser. He stuck to it for the better part of a decade and finally succeeded, which is probably the thing that impresses me most about him.

Google "True Boo-roo" to find the article. It's a great read, especially because it is a fairly successful prediction of the future.

[Jay @ Sep 10th 2006 5:05PM]

I agree with Don.

[joetlnf @ Sep 10th 2006 7:55PM]

FYI, Nakamura's main contribution to LEDs was growth of high quality Gallium Nitride (GaN), a compound semiconductor that has a large enough energy gap to produce short wavelength light (e.g. green, blue, UV).

[Rudolph Bledsoe @ Sep 10th 2006 8:53PM]

You geeks, who post all of these little editing mistakes, are the very reason us hipsters dont like you. So what, he was grammatically incorrect, you get the point. Dorks. You suck, because you always feel you need to correct the writers of this fine blog. Make your own blog and get your own editors. But that would be too easy. So continue to criticise the writers of this blog. I'm sure it makes you fell superior in your otherwise inferior little worlds. Idiots.

[inferior @ Sep 10th 2006 9:52PM]

Rudolph Bledsoe: you missed the apostrophe in "don't".
My apologies, but that was too funny to ignore.
(You have a point, though.)

[Rudolph Bledsoe @ Sep 10th 2006 10:09PM]

-----------------------
Your comments: You geeks, who post all of these little editing mistakes, are the very
reason us hipsters dont like you. So what, he was grammatically
incorrect, you get the point. Dorks. You suck, because you always
feel you need to correct the writers of this fine blog. Make your own
blog and get your own editors. But that would be too easy. So continue
to criticise the writers of this blog. I'm sure it makes you feel
superior in your otherwise inferior little worlds. Idiots. I corrected myself in this one. So, dont bother pointing it out. Jerks
-----------------------------

[geekboy @ Sep 10th 2006 11:10PM]

self-titled hipster,

fyi, the reason the geeks are correcting this blog is because they feel there is an error in the writing, mostly because WE'VE read more than this one- paragraph article about the guy. nakamura has done great things in led research, and that's what he was awarded for, but the author's writing implied that he is the inventor of ALL leds. it's a matter of absolute truth and relative. it does matter if people are misinformed. if i packaged some ORGANIC LEDs with carob and granola and called it organic cereal, u hipsters would eat it. hopefully, after all these geeky replies, u now know the real truth about nakamura.

[schtum @ Sep 11th 2006 12:00AM]

The fact that readers can discuss and make corrections to a story in the comments is what makes blogs great. If you don't like it, go buy a magazine.

By the way, as nice as it is that we can post corrections ourselves, it's really pathetic that Engadget never made an official correction to this story.

[BinkeyBo @ Sep 11th 2006 2:25AM]

OK, so where are my white LED lightbulbs? I wanna replace every lightbulb in my house and use a fraction of the power for the same amount of light....

[revgne @ Sep 11th 2006 3:28AM]

Here you can find LED light bulbs

http://www.theledlight.com/120-VAC-LEDbulbs.html

for more just google LED and bulbs

And yes, he did not invent LEDs. He mostly invented blue LEDs which can be combined with yellow phosphor (I think) to create white light. And the company he worked for (Nichia) didn't want to give him the money he deserved for the patent so he quit, moved to the US and sued the company and won some good money.
I think Cree (from the US) was working in blue LED technology around the same time as well.

[DarkFader @ Sep 11th 2006 6:03AM]

If that million can't be mine, it doesn't really matter who gets it as long it can be used for even more LED improvements.

[Joe Mamma @ Sep 11th 2006 8:39AM]

€1 million? Isn't that like $35?

[B @ Sep 11th 2006 11:14AM]

I think people are getting hung up and think the article is giving him credit for inventing the first LED. As others said he invented white, blue, and true green. So I don't think it is wrong to say he invented the aforementioned LEDs.