Documentry about the Blue Led:The blue LED was supposed to be impossible—until a young engineer (Shuji Nakamura) proposed a moonshot idea.

[Brato86]

A really good documentry about how the blue LED was made that works for the applications we use today, without it we wouldnt have flat screens, LED ligts and so on.
Thanks Shuji Nakamura for the figting spirit.

 

[scalpel_ninja]

Fascinating. Thanks for sharing!

 

[letschat7]

Can someone tl;dr it?

 

[scalpel_ninja]

TL;DR:

Nakamura worked for Nichia, stubbornly sought to develop blue LED tech that would be bright enough to be practical and simple/cheap enough to be mass-produced. Against all odds, he built and customized his own oven/tool to revolutionize GaN crystal production that would make the blue LED possible and later, white LEDs. This enabled the world to have home LED lighting and really all modern applications of LED tech in our screens, monitors, TVs, etc.

Side note: He quit Nichia because they allegedly did not pay him for his breakthroughs and he (I think) ended up jumping to CREE. Nichia sued him for leaking company secrets, but he counter-sued for the company not compensating him. The court ruled in Nakamura's favor, but the award only covered his legal fees. So lawyers won, no one else.

 

[letschat7]

I remember when Led Lenser advertised Nichia LEDs in some of their lights.

 

[RWT1405]

So lawyers won, no one else.

It's a shame how 95% of Lawyers give the 5% (good) Lawyers a bad name

 

[thermal guy]

Can someone tl;dr it?

Thanks for making me google!!

 

[letschat7]

Try DuckDuckGo next time!

 

[Galane]

I watched that video. It makes no mention of yellow and amber LEDs.

 

[letschat7]

In USA they just used a blue filter on an incan light.

 

[Galane]

In USA they just used a blue filter on an incan light.

Still got green. An old microwave we had (it was of course new at the time) had very simple controls. A timer dial, a red button for cook, and a blue button for defrost. Both were illuminated and I remember being disappointed that the blue button turned green when lit up.

 

[ampdude]

I knew the story about this, but recently watched it myself as well. Very fascinating! No one believed in him and he did it anyways!!
Guys like him should be everyone's heroes.

 

[ampdude]

TL;DR:

Nakamura worked for Nichia, stubbornly sought to develop blue LED tech that would be bright enough to be practical and simple/cheap enough to be mass-produced. Against all odds, he built and customized his own oven/tool to revolutionize GaN crystal production that would make the blue LED possible and later, white LEDs. This enabled the world to have home LED lighting and really all modern applications of LED tech in our screens, monitors, TVs, etc.

Side note: He quit Nichia because they allegedly did not pay him for his breakthroughs and he (I think) ended up jumping to CREE. Nichia sued him for leaking company secrets, but he counter-sued for the company not compensating him. The court ruled in Nakamura's favor, but the award only covered his legal fees. So lawyers won, no one else.

Yep. And it was pretty sad how the people with Doctorates looked down on him.