Nick Holonyak
1928 – 2022
Built the first practical visible LED.
An American engineer and student of the transistor's co-inventor, Holonyak built the first practical visible LED — red — at General Electric in 1962, launching solid-state lighting and display.
The LED-resistor and LED-array tools here exist because of his diode. He always insisted the LED, not the laser, was his proudest work.
Portrait: a stylized blueprint-line rendering, not a photograph.
Contributions in the toolbox
- 1962
First practical visible LED (red, GaAsP).
→ LED Series Resistor - 1962
First practical visible (red) LED.
→ LED Array / String Designer