Hiroshi Amano

Hiroshi Amano is a Japanese engineer and physicist who shared the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics for developing efficient blue light-emitting diodes.

Isamu Akasaki: A Japanese engineer and physicist who shared the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics for blue light-emitting diodes. Amano worked with Akasaki at Nagoya University on gallium nitride crystals and p-type conductivity.
Gallium nitride: A semiconductor compound of gallium and nitrogen used in blue and ultraviolet optoelectronic devices. Amano’s breakthrough research developed high-quality gallium nitride for blue LEDs.
Blue LED: A light-emitting diode that produces blue light through electroluminescence in a semiconductor. Amano’s research helped overcome the materials problems that had long blocked efficient blue LEDs.
White LED: A light source that produces white illumination using one or more light-emitting diodes. Blue LEDs enable white light when combined with phosphors or other colored emitters.
Shuji Nakamura: A Japanese-born American engineer who developed practical bright blue LEDs and shared the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics. Nakamura independently advanced blue LEDs after Amano and Akasaki established key gallium nitride methods.
Metalorganic vapor-phase epitaxy: A method for growing crystalline thin films from gaseous chemical precursors. Amano and Akasaki used this technique to grow gallium nitride layers.
Gallium nitride buffer layer: A thin initial gallium nitride layer used to improve crystal growth on a substrate. Amano’s low-temperature buffer-layer method helped produce higher-quality gallium nitride crystals.
Phosphor: A material that emits light after absorbing energy from radiation or another light source. Many white LEDs convert blue light into broader-spectrum white light with phosphors.
Nobel Prize in Physics: An annual award recognizing major contributions to physics. The 2014 prize recognized Amano, Akasaki, and Nakamura for efficient blue LEDs.
P-type semiconductor: A semiconductor in which positive charge carriers, called holes, dominate electrical conduction. Creating p-type gallium nitride enabled the junctions needed for efficient LEDs.

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