Shuji Nakamura

Shuji Nakamura (中村 修二, Nakamura Shūji, born May 22, 1954 in Ikata, Ehime, Japan) is a professor at the Materials Department of the College of Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).,^[1] and is regarded as the inventor of the blue LED, a major breakthrough in lighting technology.

Career

Nakamura graduated from the University of Tokushima in 1977 with a degree in electronic engineering, and obtained a master's degree in the same subject two years later, after which he joined the Nichia Corporation, also based in Tokushima. It was while working for Nichia that Nakamura invented the first high brightness GaN LED whose brilliant blue light, when partially converted to yellow by a phosphor coating, is the key to white LED lighting, which went into production in 1993.

Previously, J.I. Pankove and co-workers at RCA put in considerable effort, but did not manage to make a marketable GaN LED in the 1960s. The principal problem was the difficulty of making strongly p-type GaN. Nakamura was somewhat luckier than other workers in that another Japanese group led by Professor Isamu Akasaki published their method to make strongly p-type GaN by electron-beam irradiation of magnesium-doped GaN. However, this method was not suitable for mass production and its physics was not well understood. Nakamura managed to develop a thermal annealing method which was much more suitable for mass production. In addition, he and his co-workers worked out the physics and pointed out the culprit was hydrogen, which passivated acceptors in GaN.

At the time, many considered creating a GaN LED too difficult to produce, therefore Nakamura was fortunate that the founder of Nichia, Nobuo Ogawa (1912–2002) was initially willing to support his GaN project. However the company eventually ordered him to suspend work on GaN, claiming it was consuming too much time and money. Nakamura continued to develop the blue LED on his own and in 1993 succeeded in making the device.^[2]

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.^{[citation needed]}

Nakamura has also worked on green LEDs, and is responsible for creating the white LED and blue laser diodes, which are used in Blu-ray Discs and HD DVDs.^[3]

Nakamura is currently a professor of Materials at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and holds over 100 patents.^[4] In 2008, Nakamura, along with fellow USCB professors Dr. Steven DenBaars and Dr. James Speck, founded Soraa, a leading^{[citation needed]} developer of solid-state lighting technology built on pure gallium nitride substrates.^[5]

Recognition

• 2001 awarded Asahi Prize from the Japanese Newspaper, Asahi Shimbun
• 2002 awarded Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics from the Franklin Institute.
• 2006 awarded Finland's Millennium Technology Prize for his continuing efforts to make cheaper and more efficient light sources,^[6][7]
• 2008 won the Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research.^[8]
• 2008 awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Engineering from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
• 2009 received the Harvey Prize^[9] from the Technion in Israel.
• 2012 named Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Law Association (SVIPLA) Inventor of the Year.^[10]

References

Further reading

• Shuji Nakamura, Gerhard Fasol, Stephen J. Pearton, The Blue Laser Diode : The Complete Story, Springer; 2nd edition, October 2, 2000, (ISBN 3-540-66505-6)
• Bob Johnstone Brilliant!: Shuji Nakamura and the revolution in lighting technology, Prometheus Books, 2007 ISBN 1-59102-462-5

External links

• Professor Nakamura's home page at UCSB
• The Solid State Lighting and Energy Center at UCSB
• Shuji Nakamura Wins $188.7 Million Settlement from Former Employer Nichia for Blue Spectrum Breakthrough Technology
• New York Times article on Nakamura's settlement with Nichia
• U.S. Patent 6,900,465 - Nitride semiconductor light-emitting device
• Shuji Nakamura wins the 2006 Millennium Technology Prize
• Nichia's Shuji Nakamura: Dream of the Blue Laser Diode
• 2008 Prince of Asturias Award For Technical and Scientific Research
• Harvey Prize