Scootch Thomas Alva Edison! Now it Isamu Akasaki Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura reigns lighting world. Your bulb is yesterday’s news, the expectant Nobel laureates LED stands for a literally brighter future in every way.
Sciences receive a direct hit with this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics. Its decision is hailed all over the field. Not only by physicists but also by environmental scientists, energy experts and ordinary people who take advantage of LED technology in their daily lives: the lights at home and at work, televisions, mobile phones, monitors and many other everyday contexts.
This year’s prize goes not to the theoretical basic research, but for an invention – not a discovery – which has relatively rapid breakthrough and put into practice.
– I think Alfred Nobel would have been delighted this award which of course in his spirit goes to those who made the greatest benefit to mankind. For thousands of years, we used the fire to get light, then came the energy-wasting light bulb in the 1800s and then fluorescent lamps containing mercury, says Per Delsing, Chairman of the Nobel Committee for Physics Prize and Professor of Experimental Physics at Chalmers University in Gothenburg.
– LED lights are more efficient. They save power, do not contain mercury. They have a long life, children can inherit them from their parents.
– All we need artificial light. Now we get the energy-saving and environmentally friendly. LED technology can also play a major role in the third world to quickly sterilize the water, he says.
The three Japanese scientists was successful in the early 1990s to get out strong blue light from their semiconductors. Red and green LEDs had long existed, but without combining them with blue light could not form white light; We have known since Isaac Newton’s discoveries in the 1600s.
To create a blue LED was for more than 30 years, a challenge for both researchers and industry. But Isamu Akasaki Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura succeeded where all others failed. They came up with both the material and the technology that was needed.
– Very many, especially large industries, worked with this and failed. They quit because they did not think it was possible. But the future Nobel laureates persevered and eventually succeeded, says Per Delsing.
Akasaki and Amano collaborated at Nagoya University, while Nakamura was employed by a small company in Tokushima and research independently from the other two. They built their own equipment and made thousands of experiments before the breakthrough came.
– It is very satisfying to see that my dream of LED lighting has become a reality. I hope that the energy-saving LED lights will help reduce energy consumption and reduce the cost of lighting in the world, says Shuji Nakamura, 60, in a statement to the media.
– No one can make a mobile phone without blue point, my invention, he says.
Previously did a overjoyed Nakamura direct link from California during the presentation of the Nobel Laureates just say these words before the call is broken:
– Amazing, unbelievable!
He is a professor at the University of California in Santa Barbara and had been brought by the good news.
Isamu Akasaki, 85, told a news conference in Japan that many long condemned his research and said it would never lead to anything.
– But I never felt it so. I just continued to do what I wanted to do, he says.
A LED, LED, consists of a number of layers of semiconductor materials. The LED is converted electricity directly into light particles, photons. In this way, you gain efficiency compared to both incandescent and fluorescent lamps in which most of the electrical power goes into heat – and only a small portion is converted to light.
Therefore, it takes much less energy an LED light to illuminate the surroundings. And since about 25 percent of the world’s electricity consumption goes to lighting, the new light source is a revolutionary savings on a global scale.
The LEDs are also becoming more effective. Light output is measured in lumens, and the record is over 300 lumens per watt. That compares with 16 lumens of light bulbs and up to 70 in fluorescent lamps.
Also when it comes to lifespan outperforms LEDs their predecessors. They may already be enough for 100 000 hours – and that’s just the beginning. A light bulb is enough 1000 hours and a fluorescent lamp up to 10 000 hours.
– Laureates invention paves the way for a new type of lighting is very energy efficient. And so, we avoid the mercury. Led comes on a wide front, the bulbs are disappearing, says Peter Bennich, lighting expert at the Swedish Energy Agency.
– A few years ago, the electricity consumption for lighting in Sweden 14 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh). It is ten percent of the country’s total electricity use. By switching to more efficient lighting and control system can save 5-6 billion kWh.
– In addition, LEDs a very flexible light source. One can vary the brightness and colors. It can increase the well-being impact and health effects, he says.
Peter Bennich explains that the Japanese invention can improve public health in Sweden and other countries located far north of the equator, where there is very little daylight in the winter.
Also Thorbjorn Laike, professor of environmental psychology at Lund, director of the Center for energy efficient lighting, highlights the award-winning invention public health significance. In addition to its positive impact on sustainability and the environment.
– Their invention is very positive and well worth the reward. It holds great potential for artificial light, especially for us far from the equator. Being able to create white light means a big change, says Thorbjorn Laike.
– 60 percent of people far from the equator feels a weariness that gives poor welfare. Allows light to help cut down on the negative effects. LED technology provides new opportunities for us humans to deal with the situation here where we live.
– Light is essential to life. We need it to survive and communicate with the outside world. Can we have it easy, and energy efficient, it is a great step forward, he says.
Thorbjorn Laike underlines that we can “reduce our footprint in terms of carbon dioxide” if we replace all the old energy wasting lighting, both at home and in public settings.
“When Akasaki, Amano and Nakamura comes to the Nobel ceremonies in Stockholm in early December, they learn not fail to see his invention shine in nearly every window in the city,” writes The Nobel Committee in its presentation.
Olga Botner, Member of the Committee, said that LED technology is not just about the Christmas tree lighting, but can be crucial to the third world, especially in countries with poor grid.
– It’s not just about to turn the Christmas lights on the streets of Stockholm in December but is really something that will help humanity, especially the Third World, she tells the AP.
Ultraviolet LEDs, which is a further development of the blue , believed to be used to sterilize contaminated water. And LED lights can hopefully help the more than 1.5 billion people worldwide without access to electricity networks – because the lights are so efficient that they can be used by using cheap local solar energy.
Also the international acclaim of the winners continue to flow.
– Around 20 percent of the world’s electricity is used for lighting. Maximum use of LED lighting is estimated to reduce it to 4 percent, says Frances Saundes, director of the British Institute of Physics to Reyters.
– Akasaki, Amano and Namura has his research made this possible. This is physics research that has a direct impact in the largest scale, which helps to protect our environment at the same time it shows up in everyday electronic gadgets, she says.
The three researchers must now share the prize sum of eight million crowns. But after making a crucial invention that are used in consumer electronics over the world, they might already be super rich.
– I think they have some patents, but not so many. They made their discovery in the early 1990s and the technological breakthrough comes first now. The patents are starting to go out, I do not think they serve so much, says Per Delsing.
But it turns out that at least Nakamura already managed to get a good idea, but only after having sued their employer. He made his invention when he worked for the Japanese company Nichia, which in 1993 gave him a bonus equivalent to around SEK 1 500 as a thank you, the New York Times previously reported.
He got this pittance for inventing Blue LED, whose commercial value today – 20 years later – is estimated to reach over 500 billion by 2020, according to the international consulting firm McKinsey.
Nakamura did not like the modest benefits but resigned and moved to the United States. He sued Nichia won. The company was forced in 2005 to pay approximately 50 million to him, according to the American magazine.
The lawsuit shook the business culture in Japan where employees were expected to show unswerving loyalty to the employer.
– The mood changed system all companies in Japan, where scientists and engineers were badly treated. I am very happy with the results, said Shuji Nakamura to the New York Times.
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