Shuji Nakamura

Career and research

Nakamura graduated from the University of Tokushima in 1977 with a B.Eng. in Electronic Engineering, and obtained an M.Eng. in the same subject in 1979, after which he joined the Nichia Corporation, also based in Tokushima. It was while working for Nichia that Nakamura invented the method for producing the first commercial high brightness gallium nitride (GaN) LED whose brilliant blue light, when partially converted to yellow by a phosphor coating, is the key to white LED lighting, which went into production in 1993.

Previously, J. I. Pankove and co-workers at RCA put in considerable effort but did not make a marketable GaN LED in the 1960s. The principal problem was the difficulty of making strongly p-type GaN. Nakamura drew on the work of another Japanese group led by Professor Isamu Akasaki, who published their method to make strongly p-type GaN by electron-beam irradiation of magnesium-doped GaN; however, this method was not suitable for mass production. Nakamura developed a thermal annealing method much more suitable for mass production. In addition, he and his co-workers worked out the physics and pointed out the culprit was hydrogen, which passivated acceptors in GaN.

At the time, many considered creating a GaN LED too difficult to produce; therefore, Nakamura was fortunate that the founder of Nichia, (1912–2002), was willing to support and fund his GaN project. However, the senior Ogawa ceded the presidency to his son-in-law Eiji Ogawa (in 1989). The company under Eiji's direction ordered him to suspend work on GaN, claiming it was consuming too much time and money. Nakamura continued to develop the blue LED on his own and in 1993 succeeded in making the device.

Despite these circumstances, once Nakamura succeeded in creating a commercially viable prototype, 3 orders of magnitude (1000 times) brighter than previously successful blue LEDs, Nichia pursued developing the marketable product. The company's gross receipt surged from just over ¥20 billion (≈US$200 million) in 1993 to ¥80 billion (≈US$800 million) by 2001, 60 percent of which was accounted for by sales of blue LED products. The company's workforce doubled between 1994 and 1999 from 640 to 1300 employees.

In 1994, Nakamura was conferred a D.Eng. degree by the University of Tokushima, earned through a doctoral thesis submitted by publication.Shuji Nakamura biographical - website of the [[Nobel Prize ]]

Nakamura left Nichia Corporation in 1999 to join the faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara at the personal invitation of the university's chancellor, Henry T. Yang. Yang flew three times from California to Japan to recruit Nakamura, with promises to build new research facilities and having a Japanese-speaking research staff team already assembled for him.

In 2001, Nakamura sued his former employer Nichia over his bonus for the discovery as a part of a series of lawsuits between Nichia and Nakamura with Nichia's US competitor Cree Inc.; they agreed in 2000 to jointly sue Nichia at the expense of Cree and Nakamura received stock options from Cree. Nakamura claimed that he received only (≈) for his discovery of "404 patent," though Nichia's president Eiji Ogawa's side of the story was that he was shocked beyond belief that the court would award Nakamura ¥20 billion, and downplaying the significance of the "404 patent," opined that the company had adequately compensated him for the innovation through promotions and bonuses amounting to ¥62 million over 11 years and annual salary which was raised to ¥20 million by the time Nakamura quit Nichia.

Nakamura sued for ¥2 billion (

Nakamura has also worked on green LEDs and is responsible for creating the white LED and blue laser diodes used in Blu-ray Discs and HD DVDs.

Nakamura is a professor of Materials at the UCSB. In 2008, Nakamura, along with fellow UCSB professors Dr. Steven P. DenBaars and Dr. James Speck, founded Soraa, a developer of solid-state lighting technology built on pure gallium nitride substrates. Nakamura holds 208 US utility patents as of 5 May 2020.

In November 2022, Nakamura co-founded Blue Laser Fusion, a commercial fusion company, with Hiroaki Ohta, a former president of Tokyo-based drone maker ACSL. In July 2023, Blue Laser Fusion raised $25 million from venture capital firm JAFCO Group and the Mirai Creation Fund, which is backed by Toyota Motor and other investors and managed by the SPARX Group.

Personal life

Nakamura is married to Yuki Nakamura.

Recognition

Awards

Memberships

Honorary degrees

Orders

Notes

References

;Citations

;Bibliography

References

1. (18 October 2014). Asahi Shimbun Digital. link
2. (18 October 2014). "Nōberu shō no Nakamura Shūji-shi, Amerika no shiminken wo totta riyū wo kataru". withnews.
3. (10 October 2014). "Nobel laureate fought the odds to make history". Pacific Coast Business Times.
4. "Nobel Prize in Physics 2014". [[Nobel Foundation]].
5. "Shuji Nakamura". [[University of California]].
6. "美国加州大学圣巴巴拉分校校长杨祖佑：寻找天才为大师建大楼".
7. "美国加州大学圣塔巴巴拉分校校长杨祖佑："一流教授最看重和谐科研环境" - 中华人民共和国教育部".
8. (April 2004). "Nichia kagaku kōgyō no Ogawa Eiji shi: soshō sōdō no shinjitsu wo ima koso akiraka ni suru". Nikkei Tech-on.
9. Zaun, Todd. (January 12, 2005). "Japanese Company to Pay Ex-Employee $8.1 Million for Invention". [[The New York Times]].
10. Robert Matthews.. (3 April 2007). "Book Review: The man who had the world's brightest idea". Financial Times.
11. "Japanese Inventor Sues Company".
12. Richard Harris. (June 15, 2006). "Work in Colored Lights Nets Millennium Prize". [[All Things Considered]].
13. "Shuji Nakamura". Solid State Lighting & Energy Center.
14. "About". Soraa Inc..
15. "Patents of Shuji Nakamura".
16. "Nuclear fusion race draws in Nobel-winning LED pioneer.".
17. (2014-12-11). "Japanese Nobel physics laureate Shuji Nakamura and his spouse Yuki...".
18. "IEEE Andrew S. Grove Award Recipients". [[IEEE]].
19. "Optoelectronics winners".
20. "The Asahi Prize (English version)". [[The Asahi Shimbun]].
21. "Nick Holonyak, Jr. Award".
22. "Karl Ferdinand Braun Award". [[Society for Information Display]].
23. "Blue and white LEDs".
24. "Prince of Asturias Award for Technical & Scientific Research 2008".
25. (2015-01-07). "Pioneers Of Light-Emitting Diodes Honored With 2015 Charles Stark Draper Prize".
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27. (2015-09-16). "Chanda Kochhar among three Indians get Asia Game Changer awards". [[The Economic Times]].
28. "The Asian Scientist 100".
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35. "Leading Scientists and Noble Prize-winning LED Inventor honoured at Queen’s University".
36. "UMass Lowell Presents Honorary Degree to Nobel Laureate".
37. "Announcement of the Conferment of Honorary Degrees".
38. (2014-10-25). "UCSB Nobel Prize Winner Nakamura Gets High Japanese Honor". [[Santa Barbara Independent]].
39. . (September 20, 2002). ["Court dismisses inventor's patent claim but will consider reward"](http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2002/09/20/national/court-dismisses-inventors-patent-claim-but-will-consider-reward/). *[[The Japan Times]]*.
40. Normile, Dennis. (21 March 1997). "Staying Off Beaten Track Puts LED Researcher a Step Ahead". Science.