Akasaki, Amano, Nakamura win Nobel for blue LED
http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0001625473
Isamu Akasaki, a professor at Meijo University, Hiroshi Amano, a professor at Nagoya University, and Prof. Shuji Nakamura of the University of California, Santa Barbara, were awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced Tuesday.
The award honors Akasaki, Amano and Nakamura for their contribution to developing the world’s first blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs).
The three are the 20th, 21st and 22nd Japanese to be awarded the Nobel Prize.
The award ceremony will be held in Stockholm on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death. Akasaki, Amano and Nakamura will share the prize money of 8 million Swedish kronor, or about ¥120 million.
The academy cited Akasaki’s pioneering work on developing high brightness LEDs as the reason for awarding him the prize. Amano worked together with Akasaki. Nakamura was recognized for helping enable the mass production of blue LEDs.
In 1989, Akasaki succeeded in developing blue LEDs, which were said to be the most difficult LEDs to develop. The achievement completed the development of LEDs in green, red and blue — the three primary colors of which light is made up — and dramatically expanded their use for large-screen TVs and other applications.
Akasaki paid particular attention to gallium nitride, a material used in semiconductors.
Although gallium nitride was regarded as being the least likely substance for creating blue LEDs among the various possible materials, Akasaki persisted in using it in his developmental efforts.
In 1986, Akasaki and Amano were the first to succeed in creating a high-quality gallium nitride crystal by placing a layer of aluminium nitride on a sapphire substrate and then growing the high-quality gallium nitride on top of it.
Nakamura succeeded in commercialization of the world’s first blue LED in December 1993.
Akasaki graduated from Kyoto University’s Faculty of Science. He served as director of the Tokyo research laboratory of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., currently Panasonic Corp. After serving as professor at Nagoya University, he became a professor at Meijo University in 1992 — a post he has held ever since. He was born in Kagoshima Prefecture in 1929.
Amano graduated from Nagoya University. He was born in Shizuoka Prefecture in 1960.
Nakamura was born in 1954 in Ehime Prefecture. After graduating from Tokushima University’s graduate school, he joined Nichia Corp. based in Anan, Tokushima Prefecture.
He continued to lead the field — developing a blue laser diode in 1997 and succeeding in commercializing a purple laser diode two years later.
Nakamura filed a lawsuit against Nichia in 2001, seeking eventually ¥20 billion for his contribution during his former employment at the company for the invention of blue LEDs.
The company, which owns the patents on the revolutionary lights, was ordered by the Tokyo District Court in 2004 to pay the full amount demanded.
But in 2005, both sides reached an agreement at the Tokyo High Court to settle the matter out of court for a total amount of ¥685.7 million