Shuji Nakamura

Biography

Shuji Nakamura was born in Ehime Prefecture, Japan. He graduated from the University of Tokushima with a degree in electronic engineering. In 1979, he began working at the small company Nichia Chemical Industries, where he worked on semiconductors. In the 1990s, with no budget and no support, he single-handedly created the technology for growing gallium nitride (GaN) crystals for blue LEDs. He later moved to the United States and became a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 2014, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics together with Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano for the invention of efficient blue LEDs.

Key discoveries

• High-brightness blue LED: developed a method for producing a p-layer in gallium nitride through thermal annealing, which allowed the creation of a bright blue LED. This led to the emergence of energy-efficient white lighting (in combination with a phosphor).
• Blue semiconductor laser: was the first to create a laser diode based on GaN, paving the way for Blu-ray discs, laser projectors, and medical equipment.
• Industrial MOCVD technology: improved the metal-organic chemical vapor deposition method for growing high-quality nitride crystals, which became a standard in optoelectronics.