Nick Holonyak Jr., Pioneer of LED Lighting, Is Dead at 93

Nick Holonyak Jr., an electrical engineer who became known as the godfather of the LED lighting that illuminates flat-screen TVs and laptop computers, and who also developed lasers that enabled DVD and CD players, bar code scanners and medical diagnostic devices, died on Sept. 18 in Urbana, Ill. He was 93. From a report: His death, at a nursing home, was announced by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, his alma mater, where he taught from 1963 until he retired in 2013. The day after he died, the campus's State Farm Center arena was bathed in red to commemorate his invention of the first visible light-emitting diode in 1962. Professor Holonyak (pronounced huh-LON-yak) was among the first scientists to predict that incandescent bulbs, which heat metal filaments to create energy, and fluorescent lamps, which use ionized gas, would eventually be replaced by LEDs, semiconductor chips the size of a grain of sand that emit photons of light when electric current is applied to them. Professor Holonyak described the LED as the "ultimate lamp" because, he said, "the current itself is the light." LEDs radiate less heat than incandescent bulbs, consume less energy and last longer. They are also environmentally safer than fluorescent lamps, which contain mercury. The Department of Energy has estimated that by the end of the decade, LEDs will account for more than 80 percent of all lighting purchases and will pare Americans' electric bills by some $30 billion annually. From 2014: No Nobel For Nick Holonyak Jr, Father of the LED.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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