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Lightbulb moment for Nobel Share
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One laureate paid just $200 for invention that

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allows energy-efficient lighting and could save
quarter of world’s electricity

Ian Sample, science editor

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Shuji Nakamura with a blue laser, one application of his co-invention. reads a poem by
His work was valued at $500m in 2001 – he was offered $200. Photo: How the brain Dan Crockett in
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A scientist whose project was deemed so hopeless that We spoke to the I wish the selfie had
three winners of never been invented
he had to pursue it in his spare time has won the 2014 the 2014 Nobel Stephen Fry talks
Nobel prize in physics for an invention that paved the Prize in technology,
Physiology or including what
way for widespread energy-efficient lighting. concerns he has for
Medicine, who
discovered 'the the future of technology
Shuji Nakamura, 60, at the University of California, 74 comments
brain's GPS'
Santa Barbara, shares the coveted prize – and 8m
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Hiroshi Amano of Japan for “the invention of efficient awarded to trio for A mobile phone
blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and pioneering explodes and
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energy-saving white light sources.”
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Opening a
Speaking to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, window into the
which woke him in California with a 3am phone call, nanoworld: Nobel
Prize in Chemistry
Nakamura said over a crackling line that receiving the – live The Guardian's
prize was “amazing” and “unbelieveable”. The three online dating site
Nobel prize in
physics goes to

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scientists will receive their award at a ceremony in inventors of blue

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Stockholm in December. diodes
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Nobel prize-winners for their invention of the blue LED light. Asaki for finding brain's
takes a phone call from the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, internal GPS
congratulating him on their success

The invention of the blue LED transformed lighting. The

devices can be used with a phosphor or combined with
red and green LEDs to generate white light for
illuminating homes and offices, traffic signals and huge
advertising screens. They are so efficient that if the UK
switched over to LED lighting, the nation could save
10% of its electricity bill and do without or eight new
power stations, said Sir Colin Humphrey, director of
research at Cambridge University. On Science

“It’s so well deserved,” Humphrey told the Guardian. Most viewed Latest

“Based on this bright blue LED you can make white Last 24 hours
LEDs and those are becoming widespread all over the 1. Harvard
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world for solid state lighting. This is going to save lots of can't afford
energy.” About a quarter of the world’s electricity is journal publishers'
used for lighting. prices
2. New species of snail named in
Conventional lightbulbs are inefficient because they celebration of same-sex marriage
work by heating up a wire filament. The hot filament
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produces light, but wastes substantial amounts of you’ll be able to replace the bad ones
energy through lost heat. Fluorescent lamps are better, with good ones
but do not come close to the efficiency of white LEDs. 4. Nobel laureates call for a revolutionary
shift in how humans use resources
In an LED, light is produced when negative electrons
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combine with positive “holes” in wafer-thin layers of the ‘Titanic of the ancient world’
semiconductors. Red LEDs became widely available in
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the 1960s and adorned calculators and digital watches
through the 1970s. Green LEDs were developed
around the same time.

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Why blue LEDs are so important – and the significance of the

breakthrough

The stumbling block was that no one had a way to grow

and modify crystals of a material called gallium nitride,
which the laureates believed could be coaxed into
producing blue light. In 1986, two of the prize winners,
Akasaki, 85, at Meijo and Nagoya universities, and
Amano, 54, at Nagoya University, cracked the problem
by growing the material on sapphire coated with
aluminium nitride. Six years and countless failed
experiments later, they revealed their first LED that
emitted bright blue light.

Nakamura, meanwhile, was working at a small

Japanese firm called Nichia Corporation when he
solved the same problem by growing the first layer of
gallium nitride at a low temperature, and adding further
layers at higher temperatures. He worked in his own
time, because the task was considered as hopeless by
his employer. In 1992, Nakamura made another major
breakthrough that showed how gallium nitride layers
could be modified to carry the positive holes needed to
make blue LEDs work.

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Nakamura’s efforts did not impress his bosses as much

as they might have done. In 2001, he sued Nichia after
they gave him just $200 for developing blue LEDs.
Estimating that the invention was worth more than
$500m (then £350m) to the company, a court ordered
Nichia to pay him $200m. The firm appealed against the
decision and Nakamura reluctantly accepted $8m in
2005.

“They didn’t approve of his work, they thought it was

going nowhere. So he did his work in secret. He did his
normal work in the daytime, then came back in the
evening and worked all night. What he did was
particularly remarkable,” said Humphreys.

White LED lights have benefits beyond improved

efficiency. Unlike some energy-efficient lightbulbs, they
come on instantly. They can survive 11 years of
continuous use. Since the average lightbulb is on for
four hours a day, an LED light could last for 60 years of
normal use.

The three scientists went on to join forces to build a

blue laser, which had at its heart a blue LED the size of
a grain of sand. Because blue light has such a short
wavelength, it can store far more information than other
colours or infrared light. The increased storage capacity
allowed by blue LEDs quickly led to the development of
Blu-ray discs.

Donal Bradley, vice-provost for research at Imperial

College London, said: “This took years of unrecognised
effort – initially Shuji Nakamura’s work at the Nichia
Chemical Company was classified as ‘under the table’
or ‘Friday afternoon’ research since it was considered
so unpromising that it was not backed as an official
research project.”

Frances Saunders, president of the UK Institute of

Physics, said: “This is physics research that is having a
direct impact on the grandest of scales, helping protect
our environment, as well as turning up in our everyday
electronic gadgets.”

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85 comments. Showing 50  conversations, threads collapsed  , sorted oldest first 

2 PEOPLE, 2 COMMENTS

irishrichy 36
07 October 2014 6:35pm

Very interesting. It's amazing how such a seemingly small breakthrough like this can
have so many applications.

CaptCrash irishrichy 28
08 October 2014 9:57am

There are lessons in using your bosses equipment... one of them is don't
offer them the solution until you have got a price from someone else.

YnotStrebor 47
07 October 2014 6:51pm

Congratulations! And many thanks Nakamura-san, Akasaki-san and Amano-san: all

the lightbulbs in my home are LEDs, and my TV's backlight is LEDs. Low power
consumption and a very long life.

Moreover, the physics and materials' science behind the development of Blue LEDs
have opened the doors for new understandings and innovations.

Perhaps in five years or so, Sir Richard Friend will be celebrating winning a Nobel
prize for contributions to the development of OLEDs?

4 PEOPLE, 4 COMMENTS

Chepstow 46
07 October 2014 7:01pm

I don't think the blue LED transformated lighting. It simply changeyfied it.

LoonyGoon Chepstow 2
07 October 2014 10:42pm

I thought maybe it was a word I didn't know, but Google couldn't find it.

Tim Greening-Jackson Chepstow 4

08 October 2014 9:05am

I think Ian Sample is a pseudonym for John Prescott who is pursuing a

career in journalism following his retirement from politics.

Gareth100 Chepstow 1
09 October 2014 12:57pm

Indeed, the guy who came up with the invention of LEDs isn't too happy his
work has been ignored and he has a point.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nobel-prize-2014-inventor-of-
the-red-led-hits-out-at-committee-for-overlooking-his-seminal-1960s-work-
9782948.html

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