Isamu Akasaki

Isamu Akasaki (Japanese赤 崎 勇, Isamu Akasaki, born January 30, 1929 in Kagoshima Prefecture ) is a Japanese scientist, the blue light-emitting diodes based on the pn junction produced in 1989 for the first time with the semiconductor material gallium nitride. He was awarded in 2011 the award of the IEEE Edison Medal Award IEEE.

Isamu Akasaki studied until 1952 electrical engineering at the Kyoto University, after which she received her doctorate at the University of Nagoya. Initial work in the field of optoelectronics and LEDs were made in the late 1960s and 1970s, including at companies like Matsushita, where he used the metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy ( MOVPE ) for the preparation of crystals of gallium nitride. 1981 and in subsequent years, again at Nagoya University, he set the MOVPE for producing high purity single crystals of gallium nitride ( GaN) on a sapphire substrate as a. This high-purity GaN he could subsequently with magnesium p- doping, the n -type doping was silicon for use, so that he could produce a pn junction with GaN in total, which has as a direct semiconductor has a band gap in the blue-green color range. Thus he succeeded 1989, the production of the first effective blue light emitting diode. Before there was only blue LEDs, the silicon carbide based on the indirect semiconductors. These LEDs were already in the 1970s on the market, but were able to enforce due to the low efficiency never.

Selected Awards

• 2002 Outstanding Achievement Award (English for Gyōseki - shō ) of the Japan Society of Applied Physics ( JSAP ) ( Oyo Butsuri Gakkai )
• 2002 Order of the Rising Sun, Japanese award for extraordinary achievements in civilian or military
• 2009 Kyoto Prize in optoelectronics
• 2011 IEEE Edison Medal