Shuji Nakamura
1954 –
Invented the blue LED; Nobel 2014.
A Japanese-American engineer who invented the high-brightness blue LED in the early 1990s while at a small company in Japan — the missing color that made white LED lighting and full-color displays possible. He shared the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics.
The LED tools here reach their modern voltages because of Nakamura's gallium-nitride work. He famously sued his employer over the reward for the invention.
Portrait: a stylized blueprint-line rendering, not a photograph.
Contributions in the toolbox
- 1993
Blue GaN LED — white light, Nobel 2014.
→ LED Series Resistor - 1993
High-brightness blue GaN LED — white lighting unlocked.
→ LED Array / String Designer