91av

In the 1990s, Shuji Nakamura was working for an obscure company and following an unpromising line of research, hoping to get a PhD and raise his status a little. But he cracked a problem that had vexed the electronics industry for 20 years: how to make a blue light-emitting diode. Soon he produced the first white LED and the blue laser diode, opening the way for high-efficiency lighting and high-definition DVDs, but had to sue his employer to get a share of the profits. Last September he won the world’s biggest technology award. He talked to Jane Qiu about the advantages of going it alone – and why inventors are better off in the US than in Japan.

Did you have a “Eureka!” moment?

Yes. It happened when I was trying to grow high-quality gallium nitride crystals. This is a very difficult material to work with. One day, in 1990, I got some gallium nitride crystals and realised that they were the best in the world. No one else could make such nice crystals. I was very excited. I thought I could publish a paper on this and get my PhD. I didn’t know this would lead to the invention of blue LEDs – several other hurdles had to be overcome for that to happen. But it was the most memorable moment in my research life.

Why did you work on this difficult compound when, at the time, few thought it was a promising material for blue LEDs?

It was really to avoid competition. I was working for a company called Nichia, based in Tokushima on the island of Shikoku in Japan, which was then a very small company with just three people in the R&D department. For more than 10 years I had worked hard and managed to develop three new LED products. But their sales were terrible because, by the time we got our products onto the market, bigger companies were also selling the same products. So I thought I might have a better chance of success if I worked on gallium nitride, as few others wanted to.

Did you have the elusive blue LED as your goal?

I was really just thinking about my PhD. I had just spent a year at the University of Florida, but with only a master’s degree, I was treated like a technician there. Although I was an experienced researcher, nobody knew my work because I hadn’t published any papers. This made me realise that I needed to publish my research and to get a PhD. At the time, most researchers in the field were working on zinc selenide, and there had been many papers on it already. By contrast, people knew very little about gallium nitride so I thought it would be easier to get papers published if I worked on this material.

It is unusual to publish commercial research. How did you get around that?

Nichia didn’t like the idea at all, and there were rules against publishing our research. But I just ignored them. I also had to do some of the work in secret, in the evenings and weekends, to avoid trouble.

Why did you succeed with the blue LED when others failed?

I think I succeeded because I challenged the conventional wisdom. At the time, most people and all of the big companies were working on zinc selenide, which was thought to be much more promising. Nobody thought that gallium nitride would work. So it was a really crazy thing to pick gallium nitride. Luckily, it worked. The most important thing in science and technology is to take risks, like gambling in a way.

“The most important thing in science and technology is to take risks, like gambling”

Your inventions kick-started the “blue laser revolution” and turned Nichia into a multimillion-dollar company. What share of the benefits did you receive?

Initially I got around $190. This was normal at the time. According to Japanese patent law, employees rather than the company have the intellectual-property right for their inventions. However, companies normally managed to retain property rights and paid the inventors compensation of around a couple of hundred US dollars. Basically, Japanese society doesn’t value the contribution of individuals but emphasises the concept of unquestioned loyalty and of sacrificing oneself for companies.

In an unprecedented lawsuit against Nichia, you won compensation of more than $7 million. Has this changed things for Japanese companies?

Things are totally different now. After the lawsuit, almost all companies in Japan have raised the compensation for inventors, sometimes up to $10 million. Some companies don’t even have a top limit and award the inventor a fixed percentage of the revenue gained from the invention.

You’ve now moved to the University of California, Santa Barbara. How do you find the research culture in the US?

Everything is different in the US. Individuals are important, whereas in Japan the group as a whole is valued more. This might be the strength of US research, because inventions always come from individuals rather than from groups. I think individual creativity is more likely to flourish in the US system, whereas the system in Japan is more suitable for mass production.

Would you like to work in a large company if you got a good offer?

Absolutely not. There are too many rules in large companies. I enjoy the freedom as a professor. I can do anything I want. I think if people are smart they should start up their own companies from university. That’s the best way.

Is that what you plan to do?

Not at the moment. I am too busy teaching right now.

What are you going to do with the ¬1 million winnings from the Millennium Technology Prize?

I plan to donate part of the prize to organisations such as Light Up The World Foundation and Engineers Without Borders. They help to implement LED-based lighting systems by using solar power in parts of the world where there is not electricity.

Why use LEDs for lighting rather than conventional light bulbs?

Conventional lighting systems are very inefficient: only 10 per cent of the input power is converted into light, and the rest is lost as heat. They also work at a voltage that is hard to supply using solar energy. Lighting made from LEDs – known as a solid-state lighting – is much more efficient. It can convert 50 per cent of input energy into light. A 2001 US Department of Energy report estimated that, if solid-state lighting was widely used, it could alleviate the need for 133 new power stations by 2025.

You have been in the US for six years, but do you plan to go back to Japan one day?

My home is here in the US, and I have no intention of going back to Japan right now. I enjoy the freedom and equality here. In Japan it’s very hierarchical, and there are many forms of discrimination, such as sex and age discrimination.

What’s the next big thing ahead for you?

The University of California has a motto, “Fiat lux”. The English translation is “Let there be light.” It could also serve as a motto for my own research. I am now working towards developing a solid-state lighting system with 100 per cent efficiency. This will ease energy and pollution problems as well as light up developing countries. This is my dream.