Nobel prize in physics goes to inventors of blue light-emitting diodes

[muriel_volestrangler]

Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano at Nagoya University, Japan, and Shuji Nakamura of the University of California at Santa Barbara have won the Nobel prize in physics for the invention of blue light-emitting diodes – an energy-efficient and environment-friendly light source.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the invention is just 20 years old, “but it has already contributed to create white light in an entirely new manner to the benefit of us all”.

Akasaki, 85, is a professor at Meijo University and distinguished professor at Nagoya University. Amano, 54, is also a professor at Nagoya University, while the 60-year-old Nakamura is a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The laureates triggered a transformation of lighting technology when they produced bright blue light from semiconductors in the 1990s, something scientist had struggled with for decades, the Nobel committee said.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/oct/07/nobel-prize-physics-inventors-blue-light-emitting-diodes-isamu-akasaki-hiroshi-amano-shuji-nakam

[Javaman]

1. I remember about 40 years ago, my dad told me...

"if you could invent a blue diode, you will be famous".

[trotsky]

4. Similarly, when I was in college...

I remember my digital electronics professor saying great things were ahead when we finally figured out how to make a blue diode.

Information storage, displays, etc. He was spot on. Unfortunately he didn't live to see it.

[miyazaki]

2. And Nichia scorned Nakamura so bad he fled his home country.

This after he laid the golden egg so to speak. Great book about it.

[hunter]

3. The nighttime complexion of cities is already beginning to change because of their creation...

... changes you "can see from space."

[BadgerKid]

5. ...an alleged contributor to lack of sleep and obesity. n/t

[hunter]

6. Most streetlights have a blue component, except for low pressure sodium lamps.

Astronomers like low pressure sodium lights, because the sodium spectrum can be filtered out or otherwise accounted for, but people prefer seeing the colors of things.



Yellow LEDs could also be used for street lighting, but most people wouldn't see the point of that.

At the present time high pressure sodium still seems to be the most common street lighting, with fuller spectrum "white" metal-halide used in upscale places like new car sales lots and shopping centers. These forms of lighting have the same disruptive effects on natural sleep patterns.



I used to love my amber CRT computer monitors. They didn't flicker, and they didn't seem to disrupt my sleep patterns like color or "paper white" monitors did. You can duplicate the look on a modern flat screen LCD monitor, but some of the blue light is still leaking through.

The worst culprit here, so far as lack of sleep and obesity goes, is not street lighting but television and computer screens. I'd like to have a computer monitor where the blue component faded in and out with the natural cycles of the sun and moon. Or else I could, of course, turn off the damned computer and television when the sun's not shining.