Don’t blame the flashing “12:00" on VCRs on poor product design. Blame them on Dr. Nick Holonyak Jr., who, among his many accomplishments, invented the light-emitting diode, or LED.
The son of a coal miner originally from the Carpathian Mountains in what is now western Ukraine, the Illinois native studied at the University of Illinois, where he earned is B.S. in 1950, his master’s in 1951 and his Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 1954. He conducted his graduate work under the watchful eye of transistor co-inventor John Bardeen.
After graduation, Holonyak joined the prestigious Bell Labs in Murray Hill, N.J. He served in the Army Signal Corp from 1955 to 1957, and then was hired by GE’s Advanced Semiconductor Laboratory in Syracuse, N.Y., where he worked as a consulting scientist on semiconductor devices. In 1958, he invented the shorted emitter p-n-p-n switch used in electric dimmer switches, and invented the first visible semiconductor laser, commonly known as laser diodes, in 1960.
Holonyak also learned about research on how semiconductors could generate infrared light. Holonyak believed the technology could have a greater impact if people could actually see the results. In 1962, Holonyak developed the red GaAs1-xPx – otherwise known as the light-emitting diode, or LED, which used crystal alloys to make semiconductors emit red light visible to the human eye. Holonyak’s red LEDs were first used commercially in the Hamilton Pulsar watch developed with Monsanto in 1972 and in Mattel’s Electronic Football Game. LEDs in other colors soon followed. LEDs produce more light per watt than both incandescent and halogen lighting sources, making them more environmentally friendly and cost-effective in the long run. LEDs last an average of ten times longer than incandescent bulbs and are threatening to replace other chemical-based lighting technologies in flashlights and household light bulbs.
Holonyak returned home and to his alma mater in 1963, becoming a professor in electrical and computer engineering and working in Illinois’ Materials Research Laboratory and Electrical Engineering Research Laboratory, where he still works primarily on lasers and LED technology.
Holonyak has published more than 500 papers and has been issued 34 patents. Among his numerous awards and honors are the 1989 IEEE Edison Medal for “an outstanding career in the field of electrical engineering with contributions to major advances in the field of semiconductor materials and devices." In 1990, he was presented the National Medal of Science by President George H.W. Bush; in 1993, he was named John Bardeen Endowed Chair Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and in 2002, he received the National Medal of Technology by President George W. Bush, one of only 13 bestowed with both honors. In 2003, he was given the IEEE Medal of Honor and in 2004, he was awarded the annual Lemelson-MIT Prize.
Holonyak is still innovating. In 2005, a research center was set up by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop Holonyak’s and colleague Feng’s, proposed LET – light-emitting transistor. LETs and transistor lasers enable optical and electronic functions to be integrated on a single chip and could lead to the development of optical computers that can run 1,000 times faster than today’s electronic computers. And, he is still supervising graduate students at the University of Illinois’ College of Engineering.