Chapter 1
Introduction
Since ancient times, history of artificial lighting sources has been closely related to
the development of human civilization. Lighting source is not only the witness of
human civilization, but also the driving force for the continuous development and
progress of human civilization. In 1879, Thomas Edison invented the incandescent
lamp, which brought mankind into the era of electrical lighting and changed the
production and life style of human society. Since then, with the rapid development
of lighting sources, fluorescent lamps and high-pressure sodium lamps have emerged
one after another, acting as an important lighting tool. However, incandescent lamps
have low luminous efficiency, mercury and other harmful substances used in fluorescent lamps, and poor color rendering for high-pressure sodium lamps. The fatal
weakness of these light sources indicates that they cannot meet the high demand
of energy saving and environmental protection for the growing human civilization.
While people are devoting themselves to the research and development of new light
sources, the development of semiconductor technology has led people into the information age, and people are paying more and more attention to the research and
application of semiconductor materials. Under this background, light-emitting diode
(LED) emerges, but over time. In 1962, Nick Holonyak Jr. invented the first p-n
red LED [1] using GaAsP as luminescent material. In the next forty years or so,
GaP (550 nm, green), GaAsP (650 nm, orange and yellow), GaAlAs (680 nm, red),
AlInGaP (590–620 nm, yellow-orange) and other materials have been introduced
successively. At the same time, the luminous wavelength has been limited to red and
yellow-green for a long time, and it is difficult to achieve a shorter wavelength of
blue LED [2]. Until around the 1990s, Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano of Nagoya
University, Japan, and Shuji Nakamura of Japan Nichia Company successfully solved
the issues related to the growth of high quality GaN film and p-type doping, and realized the commercialization of high-efficiency nitride blue-light LED. The invention
of GaN-based blue-light LED is known as “the second lighting revolution”. They
also won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics for “the invention of an efficient blue
light-emitting diode (LED) with a bright and energy-saving white light source” [3].
© Science Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020
J. Li et al., III-Nitrides Light Emitting Diodes: Technology and Applications,
Springer Series in Materials Science 306,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7949-3_1
1
Introduction
Since ancient times, history of artificial lighting sources has been closely related to
the development of human civilization. Lighting source is not only the witness of
human civilization, but also the driving force for the continuous development and
progress of human civilization. In 1879, Thomas Edison invented the incandescent
lamp, which brought mankind into the era of electrical lighting and changed the
production and life style of human society. Since then, with the rapid development
of lighting sources, fluorescent lamps and high-pressure sodium lamps have emerged
one after another, acting as an important lighting tool. However, incandescent lamps
have low luminous efficiency, mercury and other harmful substances used in fluorescent lamps, and poor color rendering for high-pressure sodium lamps. The fatal
weakness of these light sources indicates that they cannot meet the high demand
of energy saving and environmental protection for the growing human civilization.
While people are devoting themselves to the research and development of new light
sources, the development of semiconductor technology has led people into the information age, and people are paying more and more attention to the research and
application of semiconductor materials. Under this background, light-emitting diode
(LED) emerges, but over time. In 1962, Nick Holonyak Jr. invented the first p-n
red LED [1] using GaAsP as luminescent material. In the next forty years or so,
GaP (550 nm, green), GaAsP (650 nm, orange and yellow), GaAlAs (680 nm, red),
AlInGaP (590–620 nm, yellow-orange) and other materials have been introduced
successively. At the same time, the luminous wavelength has been limited to red and
yellow-green for a long time, and it is difficult to achieve a shorter wavelength of
blue LED [2]. Until around the 1990s, Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano of Nagoya
University, Japan, and Shuji Nakamura of Japan Nichia Company successfully solved
the issues related to the growth of high quality GaN film and p-type doping, and realized the commercialization of high-efficiency nitride blue-light LED. The invention
of GaN-based blue-light LED is known as “the second lighting revolution”. They
also won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics for “the invention of an efficient blue
light-emitting diode (LED) with a bright and energy-saving white light source” [3].
© Science Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020
J. Li et al., III-Nitrides Light Emitting Diodes: Technology and Applications,
Springer Series in Materials Science 306,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7949-3_1
1