NOBEL PRIZE - For Physics Goes Inventors of LEDs

COMMENT:   At home I am replacing most of my light bulbs (including CFLs) with LEDs lights.   Example, 75w equivalent LED spot lights that consume 18w and should last 5yrs.

"How many Nobel Prize winners does it take to improve a light bulb?" PBS NewsHour 10/7/2014

Excerpt

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  The Nobel Prize in Physics is often awarded to work that can be tough to explain to anyone who isn’t actually a physicist.  But this year’s winners, announced earlier today, won for research that actually affects our everyday lives.

Jeffrey Brown has the story.

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  A trio of scientists won for the invention of blue light-emitting diodes, often referred to as LEDs.

The blue LEDs, first created in the early 90s, paved the way for brighter and more energy-efficient white lights, the kind now seen on the screens of phones, TVs and computers, even signs on the subway.

Two of the scientists were from Japan, one from the U.S.

Our science correspondent, Miles O’Brien, joins me now from Boston to tell us about it.

So, Miles, the invention of blue light-emitting diodes, what exactly does that mean?

MILES O’BRIEN (NewsHour):  Well, we had red and we had green, and we needed blue the take it over the top.

Let’s step back for a little bit.  Back in the ’60s, when they created the first light-emitting diodes, red was the first one because it was the easiest to make.  The semiconducting material that makes that particular color was much easier to make in an efficient way.  Then came green.  And you can think about the first calculator you got, which was always with a red light emitting diode.  And eventually we got into green.

But blue was difficult because the material that creates that particular color, that wavelength, was hard to work with.  Gallium nitride was the tricky thing that was difficult for scientists and engineers to efficiently turn into the crystals to mass produce.

But once you have red, green and blue, put them together, you have white light, and that’s created a revolution.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Well, that’s the word that the Nobel committee used, revolutionizing lighting.  So it has seeped into all facets of life.

MILES O’BRIEN:  Well, think about the incandescent lightbulb, which is just a hot, glowing filament in a vacuum tube.  Then we went to fluorescent lights, much more efficient.

And now we’re in the world of LEDs, which if you go back to the incandescent bulb, comparing it, 20 times more efficient, and lasts much longer.  You know, a quarter of the energy on our planet is spent in creating light.  And in order to reduce all of our need for energy and our carbon footprint, LEDs make a huge, significant impact.