Isamu Akasaki in 2014 (cropped from Image source)What They Say
On the 1st April, Professor. Isamu Akasaki, the Nobel Prize winning developer of blue LEDs, died in Nagoya Japan. He was 92.
He won the Nobel Prize in 2014 along with Dr. Amano, a student of his at Nagoya University and Shuji Nakamura, who was working at Nichia when the breakthrough was made. Dr Akasaki is recognised as having continued to try to create blue LEDs from Gallium Nitride (GaN) when other regarded the possibility as ‘a lost cause’ because of the crystal structure.
The BBC spoke (from 7:50) to Hiroshi Amano who said that it took fifteen years to make the breakthrough, with work going on from 1974 to 1989. The patent was owned by the Japanese government, which split the income between all its universites, Amano-sensei said.
What We Think
I missed this at the time, apologies. (BR)
