Oct 9 1962 - Happy Birthday LEDs!

Happy Birthday LEDS

http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2012/10/oct-9-1962-the-first-visible-led-is-demonstrated/

In the early 1960s, the only light emitted from LEDs was infrared. The race to produce a visible LED had GE researchers scrambling to be first.Holonyak suggested using a mixture of gallium arsenide and gallium phosphide (GaAs phosphide). His fellow scientists said the mixture would not work. In fact, they were pretty vocal in their disagreement with Holonyak's hypothesis.
"You so and so, if you would have been a chemist, you would have known that wouldn't work and all that," Holonyak told the producers of A Brilliant Idea: Nick Holonyak, Jr. and the LED, a video about his colleagues' lack of faith in his idea.
Undeterred, Holonyak forged head and created a GaAs phosphide crystal. Fifty years ago today, he presented the first visible LED to GE executives. His mixture created a red glow that's still seen today. But Holonyak believed that the dim glow of his invention was just the beginning.

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Good Morning brandini,

Welcome to CPF. :welcome: Thanks for sharing this great article.

~ Chance

+

LEDs' 50 years from now?

500lm/W*


*this would require vaporized 'spent fuel rod' gas under the led dome

Totally forgot to post this with it:

A great story/video! Thanks for posting about it, Brandini!
I had heard about this briefly on NPR, and it got my attention because he came from (or was at?) University of Illinois, not too far from where I live.

I was especially pleased that Mr. Holonyak had come from humble beginnings and was able to get a good education and make an important contribution to society and LED geeks. Southern Illiniois is still very much dominated by coal mining... it would be nice to see it supplanted by higher tech industries that were cleaner and safer for those in the business.

Hm, well how do we celebrate LED day? I already use my LED EDC often nightly, so that won't change, and I don't have any LED household bulbs yet..

LED Celebrates 50th Anniversary

I was born in the same year as LEDs. Damn, I'm getting old!
http://www.ledinside.com/news/2012/10/led_celebrates_50th_anniversary_20121009

That is such a neat video. I'd love to be able to chat with him about his invention.

BTW somebody on another board pointed out that an incandescent bulb is technically a light-emitting resistor.

I'm surprised that guy isn't on the forum. Someone should send him a niacha 219 and tell him to join the forum. I enjoyed that, thanks for sharing.

whateatsrabbits said:

I'm surprised that guy isn't on the forum. Someone should send him a niacha 219 and tell him to join the forum. I enjoyed that, thanks for sharing.

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Thanks for volunteering

Norm

whateatsrabbits said:

Someone should send him a niacha 219

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Niachas with cheese and jalapeños, mm..

Seriously though, if there were one website that guy were on, shouldn't it be this one?

I will never forget those early days in LED's. I remember the first Fenix LED light I bought in '63. It was the Fenix TK-1. Unlike the much more powerful and modern 800L TK-41 that came out about a year ago, it only had 792 lumens on high. Even the 1964 Armytek Predator was only 400 lumens. The technology has increased so much since then!

NO just kidding, as most people here already know, Fenix and Armytek brands didnt come out til at least 1972....


Seriously what were early LED's used for? I remember as a kid having one of those 64 in 1 electronic kits that had the wires that you would connect to different springs following the charts, and you'd end up creating some simple radio or detector or whatever, but they had a little LED light that let you know when certain circuits were connected.

HighlanderNorth said:

Seriously what were early LED's used for?

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They were used instead of incandescent indicator lamps.

Norm

HighlanderNorth said:

Seriously what were early LED's used for?

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I'm the oper-ator / with my poc-ket calu-lator..

StarHalo said:

I'm the oper-ator / with my poc-ket calu-lator..

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Werent they like $200 when they first came out in the 70's? Calculators I mean...

StarHalo said:

I'm the oper-ator / with my poc-ket calu-lator..

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Kraftwerk FTW!

And I'm only 25, haha.

HighlanderNorth said:

Werent they like $200 when they first came out in the 70's? Calculators I mean...

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I came out in the 70's, so according to the websites: A hundred-ish for a TI with an LED display; the specific one above is from late 70's when the price had already fallen to $30 for a scientific model.

nbp said:

Kraftwerk FTW!

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Added bonus: The calculator and song are from the same year.

Ich bin ein Musiker, mit dem Taschenrechner in der Hand.

StarHalo said:

I'm the oper-ator / with my poc-ket calu-lator..

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I have one of those! It still works, too!

BTW, I've been around nearly as long as LEDs.

Happy birthday, LEDs.