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Shuji Nakamura Awarded the 2006 Millennium Prize

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the kudos-to-you-sir dept.

Mictian writes "University of California professor Shuji Nakamura, the japanese inventor of the bright green, white and blue GaN LEDs and a blue laser, has been awarded the 2006 Millennium Technology Prize. While blue LEDs are considered cool and thus needful things by most nerds, Nakamura adapted his blue LEDs to make a blue laser in the mid 90s. The next generation optical storage formats, HD-DVD and BluRay, are of course both based on blue laser. Also, his white LEDS need far less energy than normal incandescent lamps and can thus provide plenty of opportunity for energy-saving in the industrialized world. But probably the most significant future application for Shuji Nakamura's invention comes in the form of sterilizing drinking water, since the the water purification process can be made cheaper and more efficient with the use of ultraviolet LEDs. This can improve the lives and health of tens of millions people in developing countries."

3 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. frickin blue lights! by kisrael · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I hate those blue LEDs that are on every damn bit of electronics these days. So many manufacturers don't bother to tone it down, so you have all these power indicators that can light up the damn room. Especially irritating if they're flashing, like when my laptop is suspended.

    Oh, and backlit cellphone keypads, blue? Worst idea ever. Blue is the about the hardest color to get your eyes to focus on.

    So many designers have no sense of aesthetics. They just go with the trend du jour.

    --
    SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
  2. Re:Not University of California by falzer · · Score: 5, Funny

    I know it's fun to use "she/he" interchangeably to curry favour with feminists, but in this case the inventor actually is a he.

  3. Re:UV leds suck for sterilization by CrazyMik · · Score: 5, Informative

    There are some companies working deep UV LEDS. Check out this article on a company called SET Inc (http://www.s-et.com/). They make LEDS that emit down to 250 NM, and in addition to water purification, these LEDS could be used like fluorescent tubes to excite phosphors for lighting.

    A more detaile article, written by me, can be found at:
    http://www.mdatechnology.net/tech_update.aspx?id=6 0
    Click on the article "Light Work" - the direct link was not working...

    or a dryer more technical description:
    http://www.mdatechnology.net/techsearch.asp?articl eid=573#listing/