Book Description

Published to celebrate the awarding of the 2014 Nobel Prize in physics to Shuji Nakumura, this newly revised edition of a 2007 book profiles the gifted Japanese engineer who is largely responsible for the coming revolution in lighting technology. He came out of nowhere to stun the world with his announcement that he had created the last piece in the puzzle needed for manufacturing solid-state white lights. The invention of this holy-grail product, which promises to make Edison's light bulb obsolete, had eluded the best minds at the top electronic firms for twenty-five years. Thanks to Nakamura's work, the technology of light emitting diodes (LEDs) is ready for widespread implementation. Its impacts will include a reduction in energy consumption for electric lighting by up to 80 percent. This revised edition contains a new preface and an afterword that summarizes Nakamura's most recent accomplishments. In 2008, he and two other scientists founded a company called Soraa (which means sky in Japanese). In 2012, the firm debuted a new technology, based on improved crystal growth (using a technique pioneered by Shuji). It enables second-generation LEDs that are much smaller, more energy-efficient, produce better color, and most likely will replace halogen lights. Besides the Nobel Prize, Nakamura is also the winner of the prestigious $1.5 million Millennium Technology Prize and Japan's Order of Culture Award. Veteran technology writer Bob Johnstone is the first Western journalist to meet and interview Nakamura and he has received the brilliant engineer's full cooperation through a series of exclusive interviews given for the book.