Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to Inventors of Blue LED

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STOCKHOLM — Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano of Japan and U.S. scientist Shuji Nakamura won the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for the invention of blue light-emitting diodes, a breakthrough that spurred the development of LED technology used to light up computer screens and modern smartphones.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences says their invention is just 20 years old, "but it has already contributed to create white light in an entirely new manner to the benefit of us all."

See also: Three Scientists Win Nobel in Medicine for Discovering Brain's 'GPS'

Scientists had struggled for decades to produce the blue diodes that are a crucial component in producing white light from LEDs when the three laureates made their breakthroughs in the early 1990s. Read more...

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