Professor Nakamura may have single-handedly changed the technological face of the world. His discovery of p-type doping in Gallium Nitride (GaN) and development of blue, green, and white light emitting diodes (LEDs) and blue laser diodes (LDs) has enabled energy efficient, solid-state lighting used in displays, medicine, and the next generation of Blu-Ray optical storage. Now, Dr. Nakamura’s inventions are poised to replace Thomas Edison’s light bulb and save the world billions of dollars in energy costs.
Professor Nakamura was awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics “for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources.” He has also received numerous other awards for his work. He was elected as a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 2003. Prof. Nakamura received the 2014 Order of Culture Award in Japan. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2015. He received the 2015 Charles Stark Draper Prize for Engineering and the 2015 Global Energy Prize in Russia.
Since 2000, he has been a professor of Materials and Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He holds more than 200 US patents and over 300 Japanese patents. He has published more than 550 papers in his field. Professor Nakamura is the Research Director of the Solid State Lighting & Energy Electronics Center and the Cree Chair in Solid State Lighting & Displays. He co-founded Soraa, Inc. in 2008, which operates vertically integrated fabrication facilities in California’s Silicon Valley and Santa Barbara.
2014 Nobel Prize in Physics
2013 LED Pioneer Awards
2013 LUX Awards: LUX person fo the Year in association with One-LUX”
2013 Awards of Outstanding Achievement for Global SSL Development by ISA
2012 Technology and Engineering Emmy Award
2012 Inventor of the Year Award by Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Law Association
2009 Harvey Prize by Technion, Israel Institute of Technology
2008 Japanese Science of Applied Physics (JSAP) Outstanding Paper Award for “Demonstration of Nonpolar m-Plane InGaN/GaN Laser Diode”
2008 The Prince of Asturias Award for Technical Scientific Research (The Prince of Asturias Foundation, Spain)
2007 Santa Barbara Region Chamber of Commerce Innovator of the Year Award
2007 Czochralski Award
2006 Global Innovation Leader Award, Optical Media Global Industry Awards
2006 Millennium Technology Prize, Finland
2004 The Society for Information Display Karl Ferdinand Braun Prize
2003 CompoundSemi Pioneer Award
2003 National Academy of Engineering Member
2003 Blue Spectrum Pioneer Awards
2002 IEEE/LEOS Quantum Electronics Award
2002 Recipient of the Franklin Medall in Engineering
2002 Takeda Award
2002 The Economist Innovation Award 2002 “No Boundaries”
2002 World Technology Award
2001 Asahi Award
2001 Cree Professor in Solid State Lighting and Display Endowed Chair
2001 OSA Nick Holonyak Award
2001 LEOS Distinguished Lecturer Award
2000 Takayanagi Award
2000 Carl Zeiss Research Award
2000 Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology Award
1999 Julius-Springer Prize for Applied Physics
1998 Innovation in Real Materials (IRM) Award
1998 C&C Award
1998 IEEE Jack A. Morton Award
1998 British Rank Prize
1997 Best Paper Award of Japanese Applied Physics Society
1997 Okochi Memorial Award
1997 Materials Research Society (MRS) Medal Award
1996 Nikkei BP Engineering Award
1996 Nishina Memorial Award
1996 IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society Engineering Achievement Award
1996 Society for Information Display (SID) Special Recognition Award
1995 Sakurai Award
1994 Best Paper Award of Japanese Applied Physics Society
1994 Nikkei BP Engineering Award