Shuji Nakamura

Banquet speech

Shuji Nakamura’s speech at the Nobel Banquet in the Stockholm City Hall, 10 December 2014.

Your Majesty, Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, Colleagues and Friends:

On behalf of my co-recipients, Professor Isamu Akasaki and Professor Hiroshi Amano, I would like to thank the Members of the Nobel Prize selection committee, and members of the Swedish Royal Academy of Science for honouring our invention of the efficient blue-light emitting diodes (LED) which has enabled bright and energy-savings white light sources.

Alfred Nobel wanted his prize to be awarded based on an invention or discovery in physics that “during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind”. Therefore we are deeply honoured that the dream of LED Lighting has now become a reality, and is greatly benefiting mankind.

Nowadays we can buy energy efficient LED Light bulbs at the supermarket and help reduce energy use. LED lighting IS 10 TIMES MORE efficient than conventional incandescent lamp so we can drastically reduce energy consumption.  I believe that LED Lighting can also reduce Global Warming too.

In Addition, by combining LED with Solar Cell we can give sustainable lighting to the 1.5 Billion people without electricity that’s cost effective, clean, and safe – truly lighting the world.

My colleague at UCSB, and Physics Nobel Laureate in 2000, Professor Herbert Kroemer said  about LED lighting: “We are not just talking about doing things better, but about doing things we never could before. You have forvever changed the world, now every person can experience LED Lighting”.

If I can tell you a little story of encouragement . . . when we began work on the blue LED in the 1980s, we were told again and again that what we were trying to do was impossible.

Still, we persevered, working hard for many hours and years to develop this new technology.

After the breakthroughs in making the bright blue LED by Professors Akasaki, Amano and myself, an explosion of research activity occurred.  Thousands of researchers joined the field and applied the LED to many fields such as mobile phone screens, LED Television, and LED Lighting.

Along with Professor Isamu Akasaki and Professor Hiroshi Amano, I would like to thank the Swedish Royal Academy again for awarded this prize to our invention of blue LED and energy efficient LED Lights. I would also like to thank all my colleagues at Nichia and UCSB and my Family for letting me work so hard.

Today, I hope that everyone can now use efficient and LED Lighting to save energy!

Thank You! (Tack)

Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 2014

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