LED Development

LED Development

What is an LED? It‘s a light-emitting diode; it is used in several kinds of electronic devices. What an LED does is it‘s basically a semiconductor that puts out an electrical current. You know LEDs that are used in flashlights, ultraviolet lights, and infrared. Plus the Ultraviolet LED can be used as a growth light which will help plants in photosynthesis.

First invented in 1907 in the Marconi Labs by H.J. Round, no practical use was found for it for several decades. There were also other scientist who were flirting with the new discovery, including Oleg Vladimirovich Losev of Russia and Rubin Braunstein who worked at Radio Corporation of America. Also Bob Biard and Gary Pittman of Texas Instruments put a patent in for the infrared light-emitting diode in the year of 1961.

In 1962 the first red or visible-spectrum was discovered by a General Electric scientist Nick Holonyak Jr. This earned him the name of "Father of the Light-Emitting Diode." And a student of his, M. George Craford, created the first yellow light-emitting diode in 1972.

The first blue light-emitting diode was developed by Shuji Nakamura. It is known for its high-brightness. Then in 1995 Alberto Barbieri showed off the first white light-emitting diode. As you can tell light-emitting diodes are getting not only more developed but also more efficient.

What all are light-emitting diodes used in? They are used in everything from televisions, to radios, telephones, calculators, and even watches. With the advancements in the technology of light-emitting diodes it‘s easy to imagine what they will be used in next.

The whole idea behind this invention is very hard to understand when you read all the technical information about it. But you can tell they have been studied for many years and changed and upgraded to make them better.

In fact in recent years they have been using photonic crystal with light-emitting diodes and this has cut down on back reflections, advancing the technology even further. It‘s not hard to imagine a scientist in their lab trying to make a product better. It‘s no different with light-emitting diodes, and they are constantly trying to upgrade the product to make it better.

LEDs have been around for over a hundred years now, and if you read and look at pictures of the first samples of light-emitting diodes you will just see how much more advanced and talented these scientist are in their further development.