1. Isamu Akasaki was a Japanese engineer and physicist, specializing in the field of semiconductor technology and Nobel Prize laureate, best known for inventing the bright gallium nitride p-n junction blue LED in 1989 and subsequently the high-brightness GaN blue LED as well.
Isamu Akasaki was awarded the 2014 Nobel prize in Physics, together with Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura, "for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes, which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources".
Isamu Akasaki was born in Chiran, Kagoshima Prefecture and raised in Kagoshima City.
Isamu Akasaki's elder brother is Masanori Akazaki who was an electronic engineering researcher and a Professor Emeritus at Kyushu University.
Isamu Akasaki graduated from Kagoshima Prefectural Daini-Kagoshima Middle School in 1946, from Seventh Higher School Zoshikan in 1949 and from Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Kyoto University in 1952.
Isamu Akasaki started working on GaN-based blue LEDs in the late 1960s.
In 1981, Isamu Akasaki started afresh the growth of GaN by MOVPE at Nagoya University, and in 1985 he and his group succeeded in growing high-quality GaN on sapphire substrate by pioneering the low-temperature buffer layer technology.
Isamu Akasaki's patents were produced from these inventions, and the patents have been rewarded as royalties.
Isamu Akasaki then led the "Research and Development of GaN-based Short-Wavelength Semiconductor Laser Diode" product sponsored by JST from 1993 to 1999.
Isamu Akasaki continued working as a Professor Emeritus of Nagoya University, Professor of Meijo University from 1992.
Isamu Akasaki was the Director of the Research Center for Nitride Semiconductors at Meijo University since 2004.
Isamu Akasaki worked as a Research Fellow at Akasaki Research Center of Nagoya University from 2001.
Isamu Akasaki died from pneumonia at a hospital in Nagoya on April 1,2021, at the age of 92.