A Nobel Prize winner explains the use of LED lights
On 18 September 2018, Comenius University welcomed Nobel Prize winner Professor Hiroshi Amano, who gave a lecture on lighting up the world with LED lights. Comenius University Rector, Professor Karol Mičieta, also awarded Professor Amano with a Comenius University Gold Medal.
Professor Hiroshi Amano is one of the most prominent Japanese physicists and inventors working with semiconductor technologies; he won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2014 alongside Isamu Akasaki and Shuji Nakamura for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes enabling bright and energy-saving white light sources.
Although the first red LEDs were developed as early as in 1962 and green LEDs in 1974, the discovery of blue LEDs in 1993 was very important. “Only blue diodes are able to realize white colour,” said Professor Amano using a graphic example. Regarding their discovery, he praised his mentor, Professor Isamu Akasaki, who was convinced about the importance of gallium nitride (GaN) for LED technology. Professor Akasaki was key to encouraging Professor Amano in his research.
Nitride semiconductors, such as boron nitride (BN), aluminium nitride (AlN), gallium nitride (GaN), and indium nitride (InN), play a key role in the development of personal information systems and social infrastructures for the next generation. “By 2020, more than 70% of general lighting systems in Japan, traditionally based on conventional incandescent lamps or fluorescent lamps, will have been replaced with LED lamps; by which the total electricity consumption can be reduced by about 7%,” said Professor Amano.
“Professor Amano is renowned for his passion for research. His laboratory is still lit up well into the night, even on weekends, holidays, and New Year’s Eve, and has acquired the nickname ‘the no night castle’,” said the dean of the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics of Comenius University, Professor Jozef Masarik, who invited Professor Amano to Slovakia.
Professor Amano also has personal ties to Slovakia as his wife is a lecturer of Japanese at the Faculty of Arts at the university.
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