Shuji Nakamura (Japanese: 中村 修二, romanized: Nakamura Shūji; born May 22, 1954) is a Japanese–American electronics engineer and co-inventor of the blue LED, an important discovery in lighting technology. Because of this, Nakamura, along with Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2014.
Nakamura works in the area of semiconductor technology. He has been a Professor of Materials and of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) since 1999.
Career and research
Nakamura graduated from the University of Tokushima in 1977 with a Bachelor of Engineering in Electronic Engineering. He earned a Master of Engineering in the same field in 1979 and then joined Nichia Corporation, a company also located in Tokushima. While working at Nichia, Nakamura invented a method to produce the first commercial high-brightness gallium nitride (GaN) LED. This LED emits bright blue light, which, when partially converted to yellow by a phosphor coating, is used to create white LED lighting. This technology was produced in 1993.
Earlier, in the 1960s, J. I. Pankove and colleagues at RCA tried to make GaN LEDs but were not successful in creating a marketable product. A major challenge was producing strongly p-type GaN. Nakamura used research from a Japanese group led by Professor Isamu Akasaki, who developed a method to make strongly p-type GaN using electron-beam irradiation on magnesium-doped GaN. However, this method was not suitable for mass production. Nakamura created a thermal annealing method that worked better for large-scale production. He and his team also studied the physics of the process and identified hydrogen as the cause of issues with acceptor passivation in GaN.
At the time, many believed creating GaN LEDs was too difficult. Nakamura was fortunate that Nichia’s founder, Nobuo Ogawa, supported his GaN project. However, when Nobuo Ogawa stepped down as president in 1989 and was replaced by his son-in-law, Eiji Ogawa, the company ordered Nakamura to stop his GaN research, claiming it was too costly. Nakamura continued his work independently and succeeded in creating a working blue LED in 1993.
Once Nakamura developed a commercially viable prototype, which was 1,000 times brighter than previous blue LEDs, Nichia began producing the product. The company’s revenue increased from over ¥20 billion (≈US$200 million) in 1993 to ¥80 billion (≈US$800 million) by 2001, with 60% of this income coming from blue LED sales. The company’s workforce grew from 640 to 1,300 employees between 1994 and 1999.
In 1994, Nakamura earned a Doctor of Engineering degree from the University of Tokushima through a doctoral thesis submitted by publication. In 1999, he left Nichia to join the faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara, at the invitation of the university’s chancellor, Henry T. Yang. Yang traveled to Japan three times to recruit Nakamura, promising to build new research facilities and provide a Japanese-speaking research team.
In 2001, Nakamura sued Nichia over his bonus for the discovery as part of a legal dispute involving Nichia and its U.S. competitor, Cree Inc. In 2000, Nakamura and Cree agreed to jointly sue Nichia, with Cree covering the legal costs. Nakamura claimed he received only ¥20,000 (≈US$180) for his discovery of the “404 patent.” Nichia’s president, Eiji Ogawa, stated he was surprised by the court’s decision to award Nakamura ¥20 billion and argued the company had already compensated him with promotions, bonuses totaling ¥62 million over 11 years, and a salary raised to ¥20 million by the time he left Nichia.
Nakamura sued for ¥2 billion (<US$20 million) as his fair share of the invention. A district court awarded him ¥20 billion (<US$200 million), but Nichia appealed. In 2005, the case was settled for ¥840 million (≈US$8.1 million), which was the largest payment ever made by a Japanese company to an employee for an invention. Nakamura criticized Japanese companies for not providing researchers with fair salaries or recognition.
Nakamura also worked on green LEDs and developed the white LED and blue laser diodes used in Blu-ray Discs and HD DVDs. He is a professor of Materials at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 2008, he co-founded Soraa with colleagues Dr. Steven P. DenBaars and Dr. James Speck. Soraa focuses on solid-state lighting technology based on pure gallium nitride substrates. As of May 5, 2020, Nakamura holds 208 U.S. utility patents.
In November 2022, Nakamura co-founded Blue Laser Fusion, a commercial fusion company, with Hiroaki Ohta, a former president of Tokyo-based drone maker ACSL. In July 2023, Blue Laser Fusion raised $25 million from venture capital firm JAFCO Group and the Mirai Creation Fund, which is supported by Toyota Motor and other investors and managed by the SPARX Group.