| View Larger Image | Brilliant!: Shuji Nakamura And the Revolution in Lighting Technology | Hardcoverby Bob Johnstone (Author)
| List Price: | $28.98 | | Price: | $19.13 | | You Save: | $9.85 (34%) | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Hardcover | | Publisher: | Prometheus Books | | Edition: | illustrated editionth Edition | | Page Count: | 336 Pages | | Publication Date: | April 12, 2007 | | Sales Rank: | 326,338th |
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FEATURES | - ISBN13: 9781591024620
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
A revolution in the way we use artificial lighting is underway, one that is every bit as sweeping and significant as Edison’s invention of the light bulb. The technology of light emitting diodes (LEDs) is ready for widespread implementation. Its impacts will include a reduction in energy consumption for electric lighting by up to 80 percent. Brilliant! tells the story of Shuji Nakamura, a gifted Japanese engineer who came out of nowhere to stun the world with his announcement that he had created the last piece in the puzzle needed for manufacturing solid-state white lights. The invention of this holy-grail product, which promises to make Edison’s light bulb obsolete, had eluded the best minds at the top electronic firms for twenty-five years. Until his startling announcement, Nakamura had not even been on the radar screen of most industry observers. Veteran technology writer Bob Johnstone traces the career of Nakamura, which included many years of obstinate individual effort as well as a dramatic legal battle pitting him against his former Japanese employer. Over a five-year span, Nakamura distinguished himself with an unprecedented series of inventions—bright blue, green, ultraviolet, and then white LEDs, plus a blue laser that will play an essential role in the next-generation DVD players. Then he was forced to leave Nichia Chemical, the company where he had worked for twenty years, and his former employer sued him. The result was a multimillion-dollar settlement in a landmark decision that acknowledged, for the first time, the rights of individual inventors working in a corporate context. Today, Nakamura holds a professor’s chair at the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he continues to develop the technology of LEDs. Johnstone, the first Western journalist to meet and interview Nakamura, has received the brilliant engineer’s full cooperation through a series of exclusive interviews given for the book. Johnstone has also interviewed other key players in the imminent lighting revolution, providing an exciting preview of the technological, entrepreneurial, and artistic creativity that will soon be unleashed by Nakamura’s inventions. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 6 reviews)
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Best Book on LED technology by Robert T. Ahlin (White Bear Lake, MN USA)  5 Stars
August 10, 2009
Many people have said that energy conservation is the key to weaning ourselves of foreign oil and dirty coal but how do we do it? This book not only gives you the fascinating story behind the development of the blue LED but also provides a path to help us conserve energy. I would especially recommend this book to anybody who is thinking of starting a green business in 2009 or beyond.
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The lone inventor by S. ragno  4 Stars
February 09, 2009
The topic of the book is super fascinating: a single unknown inventor working in a small Japanese island with a restricted budget made a breakthrough discovery in a field where the competition was fierce and with almost unlimited resources ( private giant electronic corporations and universities ).
However I found the author writing to be quite flat and not very captivating.
Furthermore the sequence of chapters is rather confusing and the story is filled with boring details about some start-up linked to led technology.
Overall a good book.
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Exclusive interviews with a brilliant inventor by Robert C. Ross (New Jersey) 4 Stars
March 08, 2008
Shuji Nakamura worked virtually alone at a small Japanese company in 1992 when he developed the bright blue light-emitting diode, or LED, that may supplant the electric light bulb in home and commercial applications. He was employed by Nichia Chemical Industries in Anan on Japan's southern island of Shikoku. Nichia invested over $1 million in Nakamura's research on indium-gallium-nitride, a compound-semiconductor alloy most other researchers had dismissed as useless for LED manufacturing because of its many defects.
Nakamura modified standard chemical vapor-deposition equipment to achieve the uniform, nanometers-thin layers needed to emit copious blue light. As Johnstone writes: "100 times brighter than commercial silicon-carbide blue LEDs, bright enough to be seen in broad daylight." (Thus, Brilliant!)
Nakamura became a celebrity in Japan. Cree Research, Durham, N.C., the market leader in silicon-carbide blue LEDs, tried to make an alliance with Nichia. When it was rebuffed by Nichia, it tried to hire Nakamura. Nakamura remained loyal to Nichia, and turned out ever brighter and more versatile diodes. By increasing the indium content, for example, he achieved bright green LEDs, and in 1996 he announced the first blue-violet laser diode.
The blue emitting diode is essential to generate bright white light. Red and green light combined in the proper proportions with blue light yields white light. The red and green can come either from other LEDs or from the blue LED itself, using phosphors to convert part of its output to lower-frequency light. LEDs have surpassed incandescent and halogen bulbs in lumens per watt, and reached the levels that only the best fluorescent tubes can attain. Their lifetimes run from 50,000 to 100,000 hours. In widespread use, they could achieve enormous cost savings. A shift to solid-state lighting would also enormously reduce production of greenhouse gases.
Johnstone describes some of the key players in a solid-state lighting industry that grosses $4 billion a year, and promises to grow quickly. Nichia, Cree, Color Kinetics of Boston, Permlight Products of Tustin, Calif., and Carmanah Technologies Corp., in Victoria, B.C., Canada, may be significant players. Johnstone doesn't discuss Royal Philips Electronics, in Amsterdam, which has great researchers, and enormous marketing and manufacturing capabilities.
Johnstone closes the book with Nakamura in 1999 when Nakamura accepts a tenured position as the Cree Professor of Solid State Lighting and Display at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Before he can start his reseraches, Nichia sued him for leaking trade secrets to Cree. Nakamura counter-sued for profits; the case was heard at Japan's highest court amid wide-spread publicity; and it was settled in the early 2005.
Nakamura won the 2006 Millennium Technology Prize and Johnstone suggests that Nakamura may ultimately win a Nobel Prize for his work. Johnstone is a true believer; he thinks that solid state lighting is the most important advance in lighting since Edison. "Nakamura changed the world," claims Johnstone. Writing in "Scientific American", Glenn Zorpette agrees: "Nakamura put together a string of achievements that for genius and sheer improbability is as impressive as any other accomplishment in the history of semiconductor research."
As a general reader, I found this a fascinating, albeit sometimes difficult and confusing, account of that advance.
Robert C. Ross 2008
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Any science library strong in invention history needs BRILLIANT! by Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) 5 Stars
July 27, 2007
BRILLIANT! SHUJI NAKAMURA AND THE REVOLUTION IN LIGHTING TECHNOLOGY tells of the evolution of LED technology and how it was stalled over making an LED that would emit the bright blue light needed to make useful white light LEDs - until researcher Shuji Nakamura's key invention which single-handedly created the industry of solid-state lighting. Author Bob Johnstone is the first Western journalist to meet and interview Nakamura, and here provides a powerful blend of science and biography to show how the inventor made his ground-breaking discovery and how LEDs are revolutionizing the world. Any science library strong in invention history needs BRILLIANT!
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
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Must read book on Nakamura and LEDs by J. Allen 5 Stars
June 01, 2007
I heartily recommend this book for people who are interested in innovation, business, science, technology, etc. The book tells the fascinating story of Nakamura and the impact LEDs are having on the lighting industry.
Part One of the book tells the story of how Nakamura invented the first commercially successful GaN LED. Part Three explains how Nakamura became unwanted at Nichia and how he decided to move to UCSB. Parts Two and Four talk about some of the companies that are using LEDs to make exciting new products. I'll be a nit picker and say the book should be titled "Shuji Nakamura and the *Coming* revolution in Lighting Technology" because the revolution is just starting.
Although LEDs have been around for about four decades and everyone already owns products that incororate them, very few people understand the potential of LEDs and the impact that they will have on lighting over the next few years. The conversion to white LEDs for general lighting is underway. People will want to understand more about this phenomenon as they recognize the impact that LEDs are having on the lighting industry and energy consumption. The good news is that this book will serve as a tutorial for people who want to learn about LEDs.
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