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History of the LED — the Movie

Posted by timothy on from the some-dude's-bright-idea dept.

ptorrone writes "MAKE Magazine has a fantastic 'Connections'-style video called THE LED — The short documentary has the history of the LED to modern day applications. Starting with the work of Russian Oleg Vladimirovich Losev, which was largely ignored in the 1920s, to making your own 'Cat's Whisker' — a primitive LED made from a metal-semiconductor point-contact junction forming a Schottky barrier diode. The first practical visible-spectrum LED was developed in 1962 by Nick Holonyak Jr., while working at General Electric Company."

15 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. LED: The Movie by illumastorm · · Score: 5, Funny

    It was such an enlightening experience.

  2. Illuminating film by lessthanpi · · Score: 3, Funny

    This movie is to diode for

    --
    One man with a gun can control 100 without one
    1. Re:Illuminating film by MarkRose · · Score: 4, Funny

      Like, you can only resist the current of electronics jokes until the intensity of desire becomes too much and you breakdown, right?

      --
      Be relentless!
    2. Re:Illuminating film by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 5, Funny

      Nonsense! Two atoms walk into a bar. The first says "I think I've lost an electron", and the second replies "Are you sure?", and the first one says "I'm positive"

      --

      "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
  3. Best not to overdrive them though by MichaelSmith · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Once when I was a very young geek I had an array of LEDs set up for some purpose. I accidently added 10V to the power supply due to a lack of attention and bad UI design. Every single LED burst. It smelt horrible and I got out of there fast. Switched off the power supply first though.

    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au
    1. Re:Best not to overdrive them though by MarkRose · · Score: 5, Funny

      I think someone swindled you. They obviously sold you SEDs: Smoke Emitting Diodes. I got taken several times myself as a kid. It took me a while before I figured out how to spot proper components that kept the magic smoke inside.

      --
      Be relentless!
  4. Baby Blues. by Ostracus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Interesting. Thing I wonder is I remember when blue LEDS were difficult and expensive to produce. Now almost every piece of equipment I have has a blue LED on it.

    --
    Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
    1. Re:Baby Blues. by MarkRose · · Score: 3, Funny

      So in other words, you're saying... they came out of the blue?

      --
      Be relentless!
    2. Re:Baby Blues. by Anpheus · · Score: 5, Informative

      Oh god please, don't say they look cool. If one more thing in my house has a blue LED I'm never going to be able to get a night's sleep ever again. The damn things are like portals into a strange neon blue hell.

      Electrical tape works wonders, though.

    3. Re:Baby Blues. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I might try this sometime. Should I apply the soldering iron to the LED or the product designer?

    4. Re:Baby Blues. by MidnightBrewer · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yep. A Japanese researcher, Nakamura, finally figured out how to do it and the company he worked for made a fortune overnight. He finally had to sue them for royalties, since the company was making bank and gave him a measly $200 to show their appreciation).

      He finally got a $190 million dollar settlement. The company actually made six times that in royalties, and the judge said that he was actually entitled to half, but Nakamura only asked for $190 million, so that's what he got.

      http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20040131a1.html

      --
      "Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
  5. Re:warning don't try at home! by Sanat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When I was a kid we would take a blue blade (old type of razor blade) and a piece of graphite from a lead pencil and by judiciously touching it just right would act as a diode and thus a receiver.

    We made a one piece headset from a cardboard tack box and would wrap wire around a form with a small magnet glued inside on one side of the tackbox and the coil glued to the other side.

    The first portable radio I ever saw other than the home made variety had small tubes in them and ran on batteries.

         

    --
    And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make
  6. Good video, small flaw. by colinmc151 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Overall a very good video, but there is a small flaw. The video incorrectly notes that Oleg Vladimirovich Losev was a scientist in Imperial Russia... While Oleg Vladimirovich Losev was born in Imperial Russia, by the time he was working on diodes, it was the Soviet Union.

    Other than that, an excellent video that only left we with the question, where do you get chunks of carborundum?

  7. Silicon, not Silicone by phage434 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Can't anyone keep the difference between silicon and silicone straight? Silicon: element, component of semiconductors (and some blue LEDs made from silicon carbide); Silicone: compound, used for breast implants

  8. He's no James Burke by tkohler · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If by "Connections-like" you mean appeals to nerds and involves history of technology, fine, but that is where the similarity ends. That being said, this was worth watching. The Silicon Carbide trick was cool.