Tuesday, October 7, 2014

UCSB Professor Wins Nobel Prize In Physics

UC Santa Barbara professor Shuji Nakamura--the inventor of the blue LED--is one of the joint winners of this year's Nobel Prize in Physics, the Nobel Foundation Rights Association announced Tuesday evening. Shuji Nakamura, Isamu Akasaki, and Hiroshi Amano--who co-invented the blue light emitting diode--were jointly awarded the prize for having invented a new energy-efficient and environment-friendly light source. The Nobel Committee called the invention a "fundamental transformation of lighting technology" which enabled the production of white light from energy efficient LEDs. In addition to his role at UCSB, Nakamura is involved in LED lighting startup Soraa, which is venture backed by Khosla Ventures, NEA, and NGEN Partners.

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