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Fascinating article on the development of the blue LED laser diode!






I especially find it interesting how we all take for granted that Nichia 445's are the standard, and after reading that story you realize that it almost didn't happen.
 
Haha, at $45 a pop I don't think they're taken for granted by many. I remember reading that article, real good stuff.
 
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Well, thank you Asian math/iq skills. I know I sucked at chemistry!

Also, any new developments wih gallium nitrate crystal and the displacement of 10^10 but still having the transmission ability for a diode?
 
LOL, I've seen the article before, but I still love the picture of Shuji...young, and actually in a lab. Wearing a labcoat and everything.

nichia-shuji-nakamura-big.jpg



Here he is now:

shuji_nakamura.jpg




Joe Mo said:
Also, any new developments wih gallium nitrate crystal and the displacement of 10^10 but still having the transmission ability for a diode?
Click to expand...

The best published records are now down around something like 10^7 cm^-2, or something like that, I don't recall off the top of my head. It really depends what you're trying to make. For cheap LEDs on sapphire, there are a lot of threads. That's all they had back then, and there are still a LOT of devices made that way. For high-performance stuff, like lasers, threads are a bigger issue, so they do a lot more work in that area.

So basically they're still there, and devices are still getting better all the time.
 
Wikipedia:


He was awarded a Doctor of Engineering degree from the University of Tokushima in 1994. He left Nichia Corporation in 1999 and took a position as a professor of engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

In 2001, Nakamura sued his former employer Nichia over his bonus for the discovery, which was originally ¥20,000 (~US$180).

Although Nakamura originally won an appeal for ¥20 billion (~US$180 million), Nichia appealed the award and the parties settled in 2005 for ¥840 million (~US$9 million), at the time the largest bonus ever paid by a Japanese company.
 
Nobody can imitate my reactor

We got ourselves a badass over here!

But yeah, give the fella some money, damnit! He gave us blue LEDs, without which, white LEDs would be rather difficult. Oh, and blue laser diodes too!

:bowdown::bowdown::bowdown::bowdown::bowdown:

Personally, I'm waiting for PBD to come out with the next big leap in optoelectronics. :beer:
 
I don't know. At the time he discovered the blue laser diode, he was working for Nichia. From the story I red the "small" company took a big risk to allow him to continue the research about the diodes without any insurance of discovery or mayor cashflow.

Also when he went to USA in 1999, he must learnt some of the American suing practice.
Well without him we are still playing with red/green lasers. :)
 
tis a good article, though old news.

I posted a link to this very article in these forums, years ago now...
 
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