Back in 2014, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano, and Shuji Nakamura - the creators of the blue light emitting diodes, also known as LEDs. The winners will join a prestigious list of 196 other Physics laureates for their invention that has illuminated the 21st century.
A century ago, people used to illuminate their houses with kerosene lamps or candles, and they all got shocked with Thomas Edison’s invention of the incandescent lamps in the 1880s. Even though that they served as a perfect source of light, they weren’t energy efficient at all.
The search for an energy saving alternative was the focus of every lighting development ever since. It looked like that nothing could replace incandescents from the American households until the appearance of the LED lights.
Back in 1862, the first LED lights were introduced, but they glowed only in the infrared range, which made them suitable for a small array of products such as digital clocks and indicator lamps. Creating a LED light that glowed in white light was a difficulty that took around thirty years for scientists to overcome.
The first bright blue LED was revealed in 1993 by Shuji Nakamura, who built on the work of his colleagues - Akasaki and Amano. Now, LED lights are gaining an immense popularity as they are being used for cellphones lights, table lamps, traffic signals, computers and almost everything that requires energy-efficient light. The white LED lamps are highly used in offices as they consume much less energy than the traditional ways of illumination.
As competition grows, the prices of this new technology fall and become even more affordable to consumers.
Every time scientists unveiled a new light source, people declared that incandescent lights are becoming a thing of the past. However, it took more than a century for an alternative to beat its predecessor!
Unlike incandescent bulbs, LEDs convert electricity into photons instead of turning it into a mixture of heat and light.
During the awarding, the Nobel committee said that incandescent lamps lit the 20th century, while LED lights will light the 21st century. In fact, around 20% of the world’s electricity is used for lighting and the LED technology could reduce that amount to 4%. Moreover, they can run on solar power, which means that they can help more than 1.5 billion people who don’t have access to electricity.
If you are looking to invest in the future, then you might want to replace the traditional lighting in your house with a more futuristic technology such as the LED bulbs.