LED Forty Years Older Than Thought

LED lover writes "The discovery of the LED is usually credited to four US groups in 1962, but an unrecognized Russian genius got there forty years before. Oleg Losev even filed a patent on using his device for long range communications, and wrote to Einstein to ask for help with the theory — but got no reply."

Comments

How often does this happen?

[Reverse Gear]

I wonder how many very useful ideas like this one there is lying around right now? Probably quite a few.
According to the conspiracy people things similar to this happen all the time, with the big cooperations making sure that for example things to replace the fossil fuels does never get publicly known, I doubt there is very much truth in this, but this little story might make me think just a little more of the conspiracy theories.
If Einstein didn't react to this, I wonder how many other great discoveries that just perish because no one reacts to them?

I don't blame Einstein, I bet there was a lot of more or less intelligent nut cases who contacted him with all kinds of "great ideas" and "energy machines" all the time, had he been reacting to it all he would probably have had far less time to work on his own theories.

Re:How often does this happen?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I'm as anti-corporation as anybody- but I don't think inventions are supressed on purpose. I actually think it's one of the more inefficient consequences of a free market- where money and brains are very rarely matched together enough to bring products to market fast enough. In fact, as time goes on and the standard of living becomes more expensive, brains and money will become MORE mismatched, not less, as many brilliant inventors are only brilliant for a 30 year window between the ages of 10 and 40 (peaking at 21) and then spend several decades struggling to get their brilliant ideas to market. With the cost of living going up, this will only get worse- as people at the begining of their career earn a lot less than people at the end of their career. The Venture Capital (or Vulture Capital) game can short circuit this somewhat, of course, but the problem is still matching up the old money people with the young inventors when they don't even move in the same social circles.

Re:How often does this happen?

[Waffle Iron]

Light emitted by a diode is a common side effect, usually undesirable.

While using a glass diode in my 150-in-1 kit, I independently discovered bright white LEDs about 30 years ago. The only problem is that the light only lasted about 1/2 second, and then it was followed by a little puff of smoke.

At least he got his name in the story

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlike "some Indian guy"

What's next.. ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess,
the first man in space was Russian as well...

Re:Henry Round the real inventor?

[laejoh]

He published only a very short note

something like: I discovered that semiconductors can produce light, I have discovered a truly marvellous proof of this, which this margin is too narrow to contain?

Lightbulb!

[Liquidscript]

So LEDs precede thought? No wonder people always draw light bulbs over people's heads when they get an idea.

Russians invent everything.

[Grashnak]

Those of you who remember the good old cold war days will recall that the Soviets can be credited with inventing the LED, television, ramen noodles, california rolls, snow tires, the hanging curveball, and pants.

Re:Russians invent everything.

[sehlat]

I seem to remember there was a line about this in Tolstoy's "Hamlet."

It's kind of sweet and sad, really.

[Ralph Spoilsport]

I could imagine Losev (four letters away from Loser) coming up with an obvious and brilliant idea. And he sits there and thinks - "This is SUCH A GREAT IDEA! I must contact the greatest mind in physics and see if he can confirm this great idea and perhaps GREAT THINGS will happen of it! Excellent!"

So he thinks - who is the greatest mind in physics? He asks his wife, Tonya -

"Olga, darling, I think I will contact EINSTEIN about my great glowing semiconductor idea!"

Olga replies, "Sure honey. He's really smart. And well connected, especially since they've been confirming his ideas left and right. sounds good to me!"

So, with great pride and hope, Losev licks the stamp on the letter and walks down the street to set it off. He holds it to his heart before he puts it in the post box, and makes a small hope that Einstein will see the beauty of his idea and help him, then with finality and hope, he puts the letter in the box.

Then he and Olga went to go boil some rats for dinner, because Russia in 1922 was a freakin' mess.

RS

Don't believe this

[Laaserboy]

I have a Ph.D. in semiconductor physics. I worked in one of the labs mentioned in the article. I have to tell you that the description in Nature is really inaccurate. What the Russian likely did is luminesce off a trap in SiC, not off the full bandgap. SiC is not even a direct-bandgap crystal. Yes, it produces blue-green light. It is a point-contact diode, but it is NOT an LED. Nothing practical or useful existed until Nick Holonyak made the first visible LED, then the first visible LED laser a few months later. Bob Hall made the first LED laser. There were a bunch of guys with Ge infrared-emitting diodes before 1962, but history forgets these guys rightly. Both the SiC and Ge diodes are such poor light emitters, that they should not be considered LEDs. Another interesting moment I believe was in the 1960s. Researchers in America claimed to have a working, continuous, non-pulsed room temperature SiC laser. It looked like beautiful blue laser light, but it was a big bust. It was not a laser. Just like this Russian, there was nothing useful going on in SiC.