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| Akasaki’s work was also recognized with other awards such as the Queen Elizabeth Award for Engineering, the Order of Culture of Japan or the IEEE Edison Medal. (Photo from radiofiji) |
[Asia News Communication = Reporter Reakkana] Meijo University Friday (April 2), announced that Japanese physicist Isamu Akasaki, a co-winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in physics for inventing the world's first efficient blue light-emitting diodes, died, at the age of 92, Kyodo reported.
Akasaki, a professor at the university, had been recognized for the invention which has contributed to bright and energy-saving white light sources, widely known as LED lamps. He died of pneumonia Thursday morning at a hospital in the central Japanese city of Nagoya, the university said. Akasaki, born in Kagoshima Prefecture in Japan's southwest, graduated from Kyoto University in 1952 before working at Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., now Panasonic Corp. He started working at Nagoya University as a professor in 1981 and was later given an honorary title.
Previously in 2014, he shared the Nobel Prize with Japanese physicist Hiroshi Amano, professor at the university, and Japanese-born American Shuji Nakamura, professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Akasaki, when he was a professor at Nagoya University, worked with Amano to produce gallium nitride crystals, and succeeded in 1989 in creating the world's first blue LED. Akasaki was honored in 1997 by the Japanese government with the Medal with Purple Ribbon, an honor bestowed on those who have made contributions to academic and artistic developments.
