2014 Nobel Prize in Physics

The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura. The prize was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on 7 October 2014.

The citation

The citation reads: "for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources". They share the prize equally.

The laureates

Isamu Akasaki was born in 1929 in Chiran, Japan, and is affiliated with Meijo University, Nagoya and Nagoya University, Nagoya. Hiroshi Amano was born in 1960 in Hamamatsu, Japan, and is affiliated with Nagoya University, Nagoya. Shuji Nakamura was born in 1954 in Ikata, Japan, and is affiliated with the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Why it matters

Red and green LEDs had existed for decades, but blue proved far harder to make. The Japanese scientists succeeded in the early 1990s, making possible the white LED lamps that use far less energy than old light bulbs.

The prize

The prize is worth 8 million Swedish kronor, divided between the laureates. It will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895.