Shuji Nakamura

Shuji Nakamura (中村 修二, Nakamura Shūji, born May 22, 1954) is a

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.^[6] 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.^[7] In addition, he and his co-workers worked out the physics and pointed out the culprit was hydrogen, which passivated acceptors in GaN.^[8]

At the time, many considered creating a GaN LED too difficult to produce; therefore, Nakamura was fortunate that the founder of Nichia, Nobuo Ogawa [ja] (1912–2002), was willing to support and fund his GaN project.^[9][10] 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.^[11][12] Nakamura continued to develop the blue LED on his own and in 1993 succeeded in making the device.^[13][12]

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.^[9][14] 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.^[12] The company's workforce doubled between 1994 and 1999 from 640 to 1300 employees.^[15]

Nakamura was awarded a D.Eng. degree from the University of Tokushima in 1994. He left Nichia Corporation in 1999 and took a position as a professor of engineering at UCSB.

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

Nakamura sued for ¥2 billion (<US$20 million) as his fair share for the invention, and the district court awarded him ten times the amount, ¥20 billion (<US$200 million). However, Nichia appealed the award and the parties settled in 2005 for ¥840 million (≈US$8.1 million, less than 5% of the award amount), which was still the largest payment ever paid by a Japanese company to an employee for an invention,[17]^[18] an amount only enough to cover legal expenses incurred by Nakamura.^[19]

Nakamura has also worked on green LEDs and is responsible for creating the white LED and

Nakamura is a professor of Materials at the UCSB.[21] 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.^[22] Nakamura holds 208 US utility patents as of 5 May 2020.^[23]

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.^[24] 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.^[24]

Nakamura is married to Yuki Nakamura.^[25]

• 1998 –
  Rank Prize
• 2001 –
  Asahi Shimbun
• 2002 – Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics from the Franklin Institute.
• 2006 – Finland's Millennium Technology Prize for his continuing efforts to make cheaper and more efficient light sources.^[26][27]
• 2007 – nominee for the European Inventor Award awarded by the European Patent Office^[28]
• 2008 –
  Technical and Scientific Research.^[29][30]
• 2008 – Honorary degree of Doctor of Engineering from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
• 2008 – Holst Memorial Lecture Award [Eindhoven University of Technology and Royal Philips Research, the Netherlands].
• 2009 – Harvey Prize^[31] from the Technion in Israel.
• 2012 – Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Law Association (SVIPLA) Inventor of the Year.^[32]
• 2014 – Nobel Prize in Physics together with Prof. Isamu Akasaki and Prof. Hiroshi Amano for inventing blue light-emitting diodes.^[33]
• 2015 – Global Energy Prize for the invention, commercialization and development of energy-efficient white LED lighting technology ^[34]
• 2015 –
  Asia Game Changer Award^[35]
• 2016 – Asian Scientist 100, Asian Scientist^[36]
• 2016 – Outstanding Achievement in Science & Technology at The Asian Awards^[37]
• 2017 – Institution of Engineering and Technology Mountbatten Medal^[38]
• 2018 – Zayed Future Energy Prize^[39]
• 2021 – Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering^[40]
• 2022 – Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement^[41]

• List of Japanese Nobel laureates and nominees

Citations

Bibliography

• ISBN 978-1-59102-462-0
  .

Further reading

• Shuji Nakamura, Gerhard Fasol, Stephen J. Pearton, The Blue Laser Diode : The Complete Story, Springer; 2nd edition, October 2, 2000, (
  ISBN 3-540-66505-6
  )

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Shuji Nakamura.

• Professor Nakamura's home page at UCSB
• The Solid State Lighting and Energy Center at UCSB
• Shuji Nakamura Wins $188.7 Million Settlement from Former Employer Nichia for Blue Spectrum Breakthrough Technology
• New York Times article on Nakamura's settlement with Nichia
• U.S. patent 6,900,465 — Nitride semiconductor light-emitting device
• Shuji Nakamura wins the 2006 Millennium Technology Prize
• Nichia's Shuji Nakamura: Dream of the Blue Laser Diode
• 2008 Prince of Asturias Award For Technical and Scientific Research^{[permanent dead link‍]}
• Harvey Prize
• Shuji Nakamura SPIE Photonics West plenary presentation: Future and present technologies of solid state lighting
• Shuji Nakamura on Nobelprize.org

Preceded by Tim Berners-Lee

Millennium Technology Prize winner 2006 (for blue and white LEDs)

Succeeded by Robert S. Langer