Around 33 years ago, GE scientist Dr Nick Holonyak Jr invented the first practical visible-spectrum light emitting diode (LED), a device which his colleagues at the time called ‘The Magic One’ because its light, unlike infrared lasers, was visible to the human eye. In a recent interview at his lab in University of Illinois, just about three weeks ahead of the 50th anniversary of the invention of LED, 83 years old Holonyak recounts the competitive forces that propelled him toward his moment of discovery in a GE lab.
When Holonyak joined GE’s team of researchers in 1957, scientists and engineers in the company were already researching semiconductor applications and building the forerunners of modern diodes called thyristors and rectifiers. On October 9, 1962, with GE colleagues looking on, Holonyak became the first person to operate a visible semiconductor alloy laser—the device that illuminated the first visible LED.