[Legacy Report] The blue LED - its history and technology

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This talk, inspired by the recent Nobel prize in Physics awarded to Akasaki, Amano, and
Nakamura, will review the history and technology of the blue light-emitting diode. Despite the early work of Pankove et al. in obtaining violet luminescence from GaN in 1971, it was not until the early 1990’s that the p-type doping problem of this wide gap semiconductor was solved. This opened the door to on-going development of efficient blue and UV LEDs. The significance of this can hardly be understated. Almost one fifth of residential and commercial electricity consumption is currently associated with inefficient lighting. Solid state lighting promises to secure major energy savings. This talk will explain why the properties of GaN make it eminently suitable for LED applications and will touch upon other applications of GaN.

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