Nick Holonyak Jr. and his work on visible LED to be celebrated at Illini Union event

Fifty years ago, Nick Holonyak Jr., then a consulting scientist at General Electric, demonstrated the first visible LED. Today, the light-emitting diode is used in everything from flashlights to spacecraft and countless applications in between.

Chancellor Phyllis Wise is inviting the campus and community to celebrate the anniversary at a ceremony beginning at 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, October 9, in the south lounge of the Illini Union (1401 W. Green St., Urbana).

Holonyak, who joined the Illinois faculty in 1963, plans to attend the event, talk informally about his work, cut a cake adorned with 50 LED candles and answer questions. He also will sign autographs. The first 100 people at the celebration will receive complimentary copies of “A Brilliant Idea,” a documentary about Holonyak and the LED. (Listen to Holonyak's BBC interview.)

On October 9, 1962, Holonyak,demonstrated the first practical, visible spectrum light-emitting diode (LED) at the GE Advanced Semiconductor Laboratory in Syracuse, New York. His first III-V alloy PN junction design is the prototype for all high-brightness LEDs made today.

Through improvements in crystal manufacturing techniques, researchers—many of whom studied with Holonyak at Illinois—have developed bright-light LEDs in every color, including white. Today, LEDs are everywhere—in traffic lights and signals, scoreboards and display boards, automotive brake and head lights, laptop displays, televisions, indoor and outdoor lighting, and much more.

In 1963, John Bardeen invited his former graduate student to join the University of Illinois faculty, where Holonyak could readily follow his wide-ranging interests. With a career spanning the development of electronics for modern society, Holonyak and his students have achieved a scientific milestone in every decade: the practical development of the quantum well laser—making possible lasers for fiber-optic communications and the Internet, CDs, DVDs, medical applications, and more—along with improvements in vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers, and most recently, the transistor laser that outputs electricity and light simultaneously.

Today, at age 84, the John Bardeen Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Physics at Illinois can still be found in his lab every day. This fall, the University is celebrating “LED 50 years,” culminating in an anniversary symposium on October 24-25.
_____________________

If you have any questions about the College of Engineering, or other story ideas, contact Rick Kubetz, editor, Engineering Communications Office, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 217/244-7716.