The Birth of LEDs and the Quest for Blue LEDs derive their color from their electronic components, not plastic casings. The first visible LED was created in 1962 by Nick Holonyak at General Electric, emitting red light. Green LEDs followed shortly after but blue remained elusive for decades despite global efforts due to its complex requirements.
Shūji Nakamura's Determined Pursuit In the late 1980s, Shūji Nakamura worked under challenging conditions at Nichia Chemical Industries with limited resources and skepticism from colleagues. Despite setbacks and pressure to abandon his research on gallium nitride (GaN), he persisted out of desperation and determination.
Understanding Semiconductors: Key to Light Emission Semiconductors like GaN are crucial as they allow controlled electron movement between energy bands when doped with impurities. This process enables electrons falling into holes within a p-n junction diode structure to emit photons—light—with colors determined by band gap size.
'Impossible' Gallium Nitride Breakthroughs Begin While most researchers focused on zinc selenide for blue LEDs due its lower defect rate compared against difficult-to-grow high-defect-rate GaNs; however undeterred Shuiji chose less competitive path focusing instead upon improving crystal quality using innovative techniques such two-flow reactors achieving unprecedented results surpassing expectations even without aluminum buffer layers previously deemed essential