Shuji Nakamura
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is a Japanese-born American
electronic engineer Electronics engineering is a sub-discipline of electrical engineering which emerged in the early 20th century and is distinguished by the additional use of active components such as semiconductor devices to amplify and control electric current ...
and
inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...
specializing in the field of
semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical resistivity and conductivity, electrical conductivity value falling between that of a electrical conductor, conductor, such as copper, and an insulator (electricity), insulator, such as glas ...
technology, professor at the Materials Department of the
College of Engineering Engineering education is the activity of teaching knowledge and principles to the professional practice of engineering. It includes an initial education ( bachelor's and/or master's degree), and any advanced education and specializations tha ...
,
University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...
(UCSB), and is regarded as the inventor of the blue
LED A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor Electronics, device that Light#Light sources, emits light when Electric current, current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy i ...
, a major breakthrough in lighting technology. Together with
Isamu Akasaki was a Japanese engineer and physicist, specializing in the field of semiconductor technology and Nobel Prize laureate, best known for inventing the bright gallium nitride ( GaN) p-n junction blue LED in 1989 and subsequently the high-brightness ...
and
Hiroshi Amano is a Japanese physicist, engineer and inventor specializing in the field of semiconductor technology. For his work he was awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics together with Isamu Akasaki and Shuji Nakamura for "the invention of efficient bl ...
, he is one of the three recipients of the 2014 Nobel Prize for Physics "for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes, which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources". In 2015, his input into commercialization and development of energy-efficient white LED lighting technology was recognized by the
Global Energy Prize The Global Energy Prize is an international award in the field of energy industry which is given for ''"outstanding scientific research and scientific-technical developments in the field of energy which promote greater efficiency and environmental ...
. In 2021, Nakamura, along with Akasaki,
Nick Holonyak Nick Holonyak Jr. ( ; November 3, 1928September 18, 2022) was an American engineer and educator. He is noted particularly for his 1962 invention and first demonstration of a semiconductor laser diode that emitted visible light. This device was t ...
,
M. George Craford M. George Craford (born December 29, 1938) is an American electrical engineer known for his work in Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs). Raised in an Iowa farming community, he studied physics at the University of Iowa, where he earned his BA in 1961. ...
and
Russell D. Dupuis Russell Dean Dupuis (born 9 July 1947) is an American physicist. He holds the Steve W. Chaddick Endowed Chair in Electro-Optics in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech. He has made pioneering contributions to metalor ...
were awarded the
Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering The Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, also known as the QEPrize, is a global prize for engineering and innovation. The prize was launched in 2012 by a cross-party group consisting of David Cameron, Nick Clegg, and Ed Miliband, then Prime M ...
"for the creation and development of LED lighting, which forms the basis of all solid state lighting technology".


Careers

Nakamura graduated from the University of Tokushima in 1977 with a B.Eng. degree in
electronic engineering Electronics engineering is a sub-discipline of electrical engineering which emerged in the early 20th century and is distinguished by the additional use of active components such as semiconductor devices to amplify and control electric current ...
, and obtained an M.Eng. degree in the same subject two years later, after which he joined the
Nichia Corporation is a Japanese chemical engineering and manufacturing company headquartered in Anan, Japan with global subsidiaries. It specializes in the manufacturing and distribution of phosphors, including light-emitting diodes (LEDs), laser diodes, batter ...
, also based in
Tokushima is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Shikoku. Tokushima Prefecture has a population of 728,633 (1 October 2019) and has a geographic area of 4,146 km2 (1,601 sq mi). Tokushima Prefecture borders Kagawa Prefecture to the nort ...
. It was while working for Nichia that Nakamura invented the method for producing the first commercial high brightness
gallium nitride Gallium nitride () is a binary III/ V direct bandgap semiconductor commonly used in blue light-emitting diodes since the 1990s. The compound is a very hard material that has a Wurtzite crystal structure. Its wide band gap of 3.4 eV affords ...
(GaN) LED whose brilliant
blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when obs ...
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 The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...
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 drew on the work of another Japanese group led by Professor
Isamu Akasaki was a Japanese engineer and physicist, specializing in the field of semiconductor technology and Nobel Prize laureate, best known for inventing the bright gallium nitride ( GaN) p-n junction blue LED in 1989 and subsequently the high-brightness ...
, who 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. 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, (1912–2002), was willing to support and fund his GaN project. However, the senior Ogawa ceded the presidency to his son-in-law Eiji Ogawa (in 1989), and the company under Eiji's direction 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. Despite these circumstances, once Nakamura succeeded in creating a commercially viable prototype, 3 orders of magnitude (1000 times) brighter than previously successful blue LEDs, Nichia pursued developing the marketable product. The company's gross receipt surged from just over ¥20 billion yen(≈US$200 million) in 1993 to ¥80 billion(≈US$800 million) by 2001, 60 percent of which was accounted for by sales of blue LED products. The company's workforce doubled between 1994 and 1999 from 640 to 1300 employees. Nakamura was awarded a
D.Eng. The Doctor of Engineering, or Engineering Doctorate, (abbreviated DEng, EngD, or Dr-Ing) is a degree awarded on the basis of advanced study and a practical project in the engineering and applied science for solving problems in the industry. In the ...
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 as a part of a series of lawsuits between Nichia and Nakamura with Nichia's US competitor
Cree Inc. Wolfspeed, Inc. is an American developer and manufacturer of wide bandgap semiconductors, focused on silicon carbide and gallium nitride materials and devices for power and radio frequency applications such as transportation, power supplies, powe ...
; they agreed in 2000 to jointly sue Nichia at the expense of Cree and Nakamura received stock options from Cree. Nakamura claimed that he received only (≈) for his discovery of "404 patent," though Nichia's president Eiji Ogawa's side of the story was that he was shocked beyond belief that the court would award Nakamura ¥20 billion, and downplaying the significance of the "404 patent," opined that the company had adequately compensated him for the innovation through promotions and bonuses amounting to ¥62 million over 11 years and annual salary which was raised to ¥20 million by the time Nakamura quit Nichia. Nakamura sued for ¥2 billion (blue laser diodes used in
Blu-ray Disc The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and c ...
s and
HD DVD HD DVD (short for High Definition Digital Versatile Disc) is an obsolete high-density optical disc format for storing data and playback of high-definition video. Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to th ...
s. Nakamura is a professor of Materials at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 2008, Nakamura, along with fellow UCSB professors Dr. Steven DenBaars and Dr. James Speck, founded Soraa, a developer of solid-state lighting technology built on pure gallium nitride substrates. Nakamura holds 208 US utility patents as of May 5, 2020.


Recognition

*2001 –
Asahi Prize The , established in 1929, is an award presented by the Japanese newspaper ''Asahi Shimbun'' and Asahi Shimbun Foundation to honor individuals and groups that have made outstanding accomplishments in the fields of arts and academics and have greatl ...
from the Japanese Newspaper, ''
Asahi Shimbun is one of the four largest newspapers in Japan. Founded in 1879, it is also one of the oldest newspapers in Japan and Asia, and is considered a newspaper of record for Japan. Its circulation, which was 4.57 million for its morning edition and ...
'' *2002 – Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics from the
Franklin Institute The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memori ...
. *2006 –
Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
's
Millennium Technology Prize The Millennium Technology Prize ( fi, Millennium-teknologiapalkinto) is one of the world's largest technology prizes. It is awarded once every two years by Technology Academy Finland, an independent foundation established by Finnish industries, ...
for his continuing efforts to make cheaper and more efficient light sources. *2007 – nominee for the
European Inventor Award The European Inventor Award(formerly European Inventor of the Year Award, renamed in 2010), are presented annually by the European Patent Office, sometimes supported by the respective Presidency of the Council of the European Union and by the Eur ...
awarded by the
European Patent Office The European Patent Office (EPO) is one of the two organs of the European Patent Organisation (EPOrg), the other being the Administrative Council. The EPO acts as executive body for the organisation
*2008 –
Prince of Asturias Award The Princess of Asturias Awards ( es, Premios Princesa de Asturias, links=no, ast, Premios Princesa d'Asturies, links=no), formerly the Prince of Asturias Awards from 1981 to 2014 ( es, Premios Príncipe de Asturias, links=no), are a series of a ...
for Technical and Scientific Research. *2008 – Honorary degree of Doctor of Engineering from
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) is a public research university in Clear Water Bay Peninsula, New Territories, Hong Kong. Founded in 1991 by the British Hong Kong Government, it was the territory's third institution ...
. *2008 – Holst Memorial Lecture Award indhoven University of Technology and Royal Philips Research, the Netherlands *2009 –
Harvey Prize Harvey Prize is an annual Israeli award for breakthroughs in science and technology, as well as contributions to peace in the Middle East granted by the Technion in Haifa. History The prize is named for industrialist and inventor Leo Harvey. T ...
from the Technion in Israel. *2012 – Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Law Association (SVIPLA) Inventor of the Year. *2014 –
Nobel Prize in Physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...
together with Prof.
Isamu Akasaki was a Japanese engineer and physicist, specializing in the field of semiconductor technology and Nobel Prize laureate, best known for inventing the bright gallium nitride ( GaN) p-n junction blue LED in 1989 and subsequently the high-brightness ...
and Prof.
Hiroshi Amano is a Japanese physicist, engineer and inventor specializing in the field of semiconductor technology. For his work he was awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics together with Isamu Akasaki and Shuji Nakamura for "the invention of efficient bl ...
for inventing blue
light-emitting diode A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (cor ...
s. *2015 –
Global Energy Prize The Global Energy Prize is an international award in the field of energy industry which is given for ''"outstanding scientific research and scientific-technical developments in the field of energy which promote greater efficiency and environmental ...
for the invention, commercialization and development of energy-efficient white LED lighting technology *2015 –
Asia Game Changer Award The Asia Game Changer Awards is an annual award ceremony held in recognition of individuals and organizations within and connected to the Asian community that have made positive contributions to the development and improvement of Asia and societ ...
*2017 –
Mountbatten Medal The IET Mountbatten Medal is awarded annually for an outstanding contribution, or contributions over a period, to the promotion of electronics or information technology and their application. The Medal was established by the National Electronics C ...
*2018 – Zayed Future Energy Prize *2021 – Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering *2022 – Golden Plate Award of the
American Academy of Achievement The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet o ...


See also

*
List of Japanese Nobel laureates Since 1949, there have been 29 Japanese List of Nobel laureates, laureates of the Nobel Prize. The Nobel Prize is a Sweden-based international monetary prize. The award was established by the 1895 will and estate of Swedish chemist and inventor ...


References

;Citations ;Bibliography *


Further reading

*Shuji Nakamura, Gerhard Fasol, Stephen J. Pearton, ''The Blue Laser Diode : The Complete Story'', Springer; 2nd edition, October 2, 2000, ()


External links


Professor Nakamura's home page at UCSBThe Solid State Lighting and Energy Center at UCSB
* ttps://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/12/business/worldbusiness/12light.html?oref=login New York Times article on Nakamura's settlement with Nichia* — Nitride semiconductor light-emitting device
Shuji Nakamura wins the 2006 Millennium Technology Prize2008 Prince of Asturias Award For Technical and Scientific Research

Harvey PrizeShuji Nakamura SPIE Photonics West plenary presentation: Future and present technologies of solid state lighting
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Nakamura, Shuji 1954 births Living people 20th-century American engineers 20th-century American inventors 21st-century American engineers 21st-century American inventors American electronics engineers American inventors American Nobel laureates Asia Game Changer Award winners Draper Prize winners Japanese academics Japanese electronics engineers Japanese emigrants to the United States Japanese inventors Japanese Nobel laureates Light-emitting diode pioneers Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering People from Ehime Prefecture Tokushima University alumni University of California, Santa Barbara faculty