Soraa, a developer of GaN on GaN LED technology, announced today that one of its founders, Dr. Shuji Nakamura, has been awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics. Recognizing that Nakamura’s invention, the blue light emitting diode (LED), represents a critical advancement in LED lighting, the Nobel committee explained the innovation “has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources.”
“I am very honored to receive the Nobel Prize from The Royal Swedish Academy of Science for my invention of the blue LED,” said Nakamura. “It is very satisfying to see that my dream of LED lighting has become a reality. I hope that energy-efficient LED light bulbs will help reduce energy use and lower the cost of lighting worldwide, and that is why we founded Soraa.”
In 2007, Dr. Shuji Nakamura, along with pioneering professors Dr. Steven DenBaars and Dr. James Speck, came together and made a bet on an LED technology platform completely different than current industry practice, a technology most industry experts at the time considered to be impossible to execute.
“We knew that our GaN on GaN LED technology would be the future of lighting and Soraa has made this a reality,” added Nakamura.
Soraa bet that GaN on GaN LEDs would produce more light per area of LED and be more cost-effective than technology based on other foreign substrates like sapphire or silicon carbide. This strategy ran against every trend in the LED industry. That bet paid off: today, Soraa’s LEDs emit more light per LED material than any other LED; handle more electric current per area than any other LED; and its GaN on GaN crystals are up to a thousand times purer than any other LED crystal.
“Shuji is simply brilliant and well deserving of this honor. Largely as a result of his work, Soraa has been able to push the boundaries of what is possible in high performance LED lighting,” said Jeff Parker, CEO of Soraa. “Soraa’s GaN on GaN LED lamps are now regarded as the best in the world, with quality of light that far surpasses any other LED product.”
GaN technology seems more expensive than other, e.g. silicon carbide, and have thermal management issue to be solved. hope it can go for mass production and make the final product low cost to benefits all of us.
congratulations! Dr. Shuji Nakamura and the team.
Although nothing should take away from the brilliance of these accomplishments, Nick Holonyak and his U of I team’s original groundbreaking results laid the firm foundations for this entire industry and should be similarly rewarded!
Congratulations, Dr.Shuji Nakamura and the team
Dr. Kadhim A. Hubeatir
Laser&Optoelectronics Eng Dept.
University of Technology
Baghdad-Iraq
It is a great honor that Dr. Shuji Nakamura winning the Nobel,
wishing his enlightening power continues lighting up more !
Congratulations to Professors Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano from Nagoya University, Japan and Shuji Nakamura from the University of California at Santa Barbara for being selected for the award of Nobel Prize.
The original inventor of LED Prof. Nick Holonyak, Jr. should be also awarded Nobel Prize as LEDs created an entirely new area of electronics and it preceded the invention of blue LED.
– Moorthy
Professor of Electronics and Telematics
G. Narayanamma Inst. of Technology and Science,
Hyderabad, India.
Congratulations to Messrs Dr.Shuji Nakamura -Dr. Kadhim A. Hubeatir
Blue light in the blue sky and congratulations for mankind in this new discovery
Congratulations for this important achievement .
Samuel Insull and Thomas Edison as well as Nicola Tesla would all be smiling.