AND THEN THERE WAS WHITE LIGHT

摘要

Shuji Nakamura received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2014 'for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources'. He shared it with two rivals, Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano, but also wrote immediately to Nick Holonyak, who invented the world's first visible red LED in 1962, thanking him for his pioneering work and the motivation it supplied. The Nobel Prize can only have three winners at a time and Holonyak, then 85, is on a list of controversial non-nominees that includes Rosalind Franklin whose work was crucial to unravelling the secrets of DNA, among others.