News Article
Nakamura honoured for GaN LED technology
Soraa founder Nakamura honoured for GaN LED technology
Soraa has announced that one of its founders, Shuji Nakamura, was recently honoured by Lux Review Magazine as their "Person of the Year".
He was inducted into Electronic Design's Hall of Fame for his outstanding work in the lighting industry.
Soraa Founder Shuji Nakamura Receives Top Lighting Industry Honours
The Lux Awards, jointly organised by Lux Magazine and the Lighting Industry Association, are designed to reward both creativity and sustainability. In conferring the award, Lux Magazine referred to Nakamura as "the man who single-handedly created the current LED revolution," and whose work is "benefitting all humanity".
At the end of each year, the editors of Electronic Design select a group of new inductees based on level of contribution, industry impact, lasting achievement and feedback from its readers for the publication's Engineering Hall of Fame. In selecting Nakamura the editors' wrote, "Shuji Nakamura enabled an entire industry based on high-brightness LEDs replacing incandescent, gas-discharge, and fluorescent lighting in vehicles, homes, businesses, and outdoors. He did it by developing a practical way to manufacture efficient blue and ultraviolet LEDs, which are the basis for 'white' LEDs."
"I'm very honoured that both publications took the time and effort to honour my work," said Shuji Nakamura, Founder of Soraa, inventor of the blue and white LED and professor at the Materials Department of the College of Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara. "Lighting affects the way we see the world, and good light can make anything more compelling. Creating efficient lighting products that do not compromise on performance, offer the highest quality available, and greatly reduce energy waste has always been a driving principle of my work and was the motivation for creating Soraa."
In 2007, Nakamura, inventor of the blue laser and blue LED, along with pioneering professors Steven DenBaars and James Speck, came together and made a bet on an LED technology platform completely different than current industry practice, a technology most industry experts at the time considered to be impossible to execute.
Soraa bet that GaN on GaN LEDs would produce more light per area of LED and be more cost-effective than technology based on other foreign substrates like sapphire or SiC. This strategy ran against every trend in the LED industry.
They say that bet paid off. Soraa says its LEDs emit more light per LED material than any other LED; handle more electric current per area than any other LED; and its GaN on GaN crystals are up to a thousand times purer than any other LED crystal.
"Shuji is simply brilliant and well deserving of these two honors. Largely as a result of his work, Soraa has been able to push the boundaries of what is possible in high performance LED lighting," said Jeff Parker, CEO of Soraa. "Soraa's GaN on GaN LED lamps are now regarded as the best in the world, with quality of light that far surpasses any other LED product- whites look whiter, colours are rendered more vividly, and shadows are crisp and clean."
Shuji Nakamura was born on May 22nd, 1954 in Ehime, Japan. He obtained B.E., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tokushima, Japan in 1977, 1979, and 1994, respectively.
He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Nishina Memorial Award (1996), the Materials Research Society Medal Award (1997), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Jack A. Morton Award, the British Rank Prize (1998), the Benjamin Franklin Medal Award (2002), the Millennium Technology Prize (2006), the Czochralski Award (2007), the Prince of Asturias Award for Technical Scientific Research (2008), The Harvey Award (2009), and the Technology & Engineering Emmy Award (2012) awarded by The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS). He was elected as a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 2003.
Since 2000, he has been a professor of Materials at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He holds more than 100 patents and has published more than 400 papers in his field. Nakamura is also the Research Director of the Solid State Lighting & Energy Centre.
He was inducted into Electronic Design's Hall of Fame for his outstanding work in the lighting industry.
Soraa Founder Shuji Nakamura Receives Top Lighting Industry Honours
The Lux Awards, jointly organised by Lux Magazine and the Lighting Industry Association, are designed to reward both creativity and sustainability. In conferring the award, Lux Magazine referred to Nakamura as "the man who single-handedly created the current LED revolution," and whose work is "benefitting all humanity".
At the end of each year, the editors of Electronic Design select a group of new inductees based on level of contribution, industry impact, lasting achievement and feedback from its readers for the publication's Engineering Hall of Fame. In selecting Nakamura the editors' wrote, "Shuji Nakamura enabled an entire industry based on high-brightness LEDs replacing incandescent, gas-discharge, and fluorescent lighting in vehicles, homes, businesses, and outdoors. He did it by developing a practical way to manufacture efficient blue and ultraviolet LEDs, which are the basis for 'white' LEDs."
"I'm very honoured that both publications took the time and effort to honour my work," said Shuji Nakamura, Founder of Soraa, inventor of the blue and white LED and professor at the Materials Department of the College of Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara. "Lighting affects the way we see the world, and good light can make anything more compelling. Creating efficient lighting products that do not compromise on performance, offer the highest quality available, and greatly reduce energy waste has always been a driving principle of my work and was the motivation for creating Soraa."
In 2007, Nakamura, inventor of the blue laser and blue LED, along with pioneering professors Steven DenBaars and James Speck, came together and made a bet on an LED technology platform completely different than current industry practice, a technology most industry experts at the time considered to be impossible to execute.
Soraa bet that GaN on GaN LEDs would produce more light per area of LED and be more cost-effective than technology based on other foreign substrates like sapphire or SiC. This strategy ran against every trend in the LED industry.
They say that bet paid off. Soraa says its LEDs emit more light per LED material than any other LED; handle more electric current per area than any other LED; and its GaN on GaN crystals are up to a thousand times purer than any other LED crystal.
"Shuji is simply brilliant and well deserving of these two honors. Largely as a result of his work, Soraa has been able to push the boundaries of what is possible in high performance LED lighting," said Jeff Parker, CEO of Soraa. "Soraa's GaN on GaN LED lamps are now regarded as the best in the world, with quality of light that far surpasses any other LED product- whites look whiter, colours are rendered more vividly, and shadows are crisp and clean."
Shuji Nakamura was born on May 22nd, 1954 in Ehime, Japan. He obtained B.E., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tokushima, Japan in 1977, 1979, and 1994, respectively.
He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Nishina Memorial Award (1996), the Materials Research Society Medal Award (1997), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Jack A. Morton Award, the British Rank Prize (1998), the Benjamin Franklin Medal Award (2002), the Millennium Technology Prize (2006), the Czochralski Award (2007), the Prince of Asturias Award for Technical Scientific Research (2008), The Harvey Award (2009), and the Technology & Engineering Emmy Award (2012) awarded by The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS). He was elected as a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 2003.
Since 2000, he has been a professor of Materials at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He holds more than 100 patents and has published more than 400 papers in his field. Nakamura is also the Research Director of the Solid State Lighting & Energy Centre.
