Shuji Nakamura |
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Shuji Nakamura is an unlikely hero. Born in Shikoku, an island
southwest of Osaka known for its Late in 1999, he stunned colleagues (and most of Japan) when he left the Nichia Corporation for the University of California at Santa Barbara. More recently he accepted a settlement for almost nine million US dollars from Nichia - compensation for the patent on his invention which they now market. Nine million out of court is OK but is dwarphed by his original claim for 200 million US dollars, that was granted by the Tokyo District Court in 2003. The company appealed! |
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Nakamura has the last entry in the short history of optics archived on this disc. Who will be next? |
temples
and mist-shrouded hills, he just stayed there most of his life.
His high school grades were poor, so he went to a local, unrenowned
university. He joined little-known because it was close to home.
He says himself that he chose to work with gallium nitride because
it had the right band gap but most importantly, other people
were working with other compounds. Even if he succeeded with
something more popular the competition would swamp him. He persisted
.... for nearly 20 years ..... to finally beat everyone else
to blue LED's and lasers, potentially revolutionizing lighting
and data storage. It wasn't easy. In 1988, after nine years of
working by himself, he was told that ''No one in the company
wants to spend any more money on your research.'' He kept on
working, from 7 am to 7 pm, 355 days a year, no holidays. Now,
thanks to Nakamura, the once obscure Japanese maker of phosphors
for cathode-ray tubes and fluorescent lights called Nichia makes
the world's best blue and green LED's and the first commercially
available blue-violet semiconductor lasers.