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Comment by Quequau | Hacker News Reader

I think this is really well deserved. Back in the day I was working on R&D for medical diagnostic devices. These kinds of LEDs were a critical part of our sensors. No one but Nichia could make them exactly like we needed and without them we would have never had the success we did.

It's just a shame that that the key dude in all this got the shaft for years. The performance of these LEDs was a big deal at the time in a lot of different industries, so it was obvious that lots of money would be flowing around... there really was just no need for anyone to deny him his, well deserved, part in that.

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I was working in the visual systems (electronics) R&D lab for a flight sim company when the first blue LED engineering samples became available and we got hold of a few for the princely sum of £30 each! Yes, we had to pay for them - no freebies!

How much are they now!

I'm really glad that there is an industrial use for them.

Blue ones are used, at least around my area, to decorate things.

The "white" LEDs you see in light bulbs in the store are actually blue.

How? Or is it a mix of Red, Blue and Green?

There are down-converting phosphors on the surface that convert a fraction of the blue light to other wavelengths to get close to white.

Is that the same method as fluorescent lighting?

Similar in principle.

> Blue ones are used, at least around my area, to decorate things.

Don't let the "blue LED" headline fool you. This discovery did not just enable blue LEDs but a whole range of nitride-based devices. This includes, but is not limited to:

* LEDs for a wide range of colours, including white LEDs for general lighting

* blue (and other colour) laser diodes (e.g. Blu-ray)

* solar cells (nitrides show good radiation resistance, making them of specific interest for space applications)

* high electron mobility transistors (power converters are a big application, but these are useful for a huge range of other applications too e.g. radar)

* potential for biosensors (it's non-toxic/biocompatible and can be functionalised)

* better UV emitters (and all that entails, e.g. water purification, or potentially lithography)

and more besides. It really is an enabling technology, though obviously there are alternatives for a lot of these applications too. Blue LEDs just started this all off.

Severe jaundice in newborns is treated with blue leds http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/leds-used-to-help...

Edit: LED lasers that enabled things like the Internet (Optical fibers often use DBF Lasers) were invented by Alferov and Kroemer that also shared the physics Nobel price in 2000.

Cool. It works because bilirubin oxidises under blue light into a form more soluble in water. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonatal_jaundice#Treatment

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