Dr. Shuji Nakamura, founder of LED technology company Soraa, has been awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics for his blue light emitting diode invention.
Nakamura, together with professors Dr. Steven DenBaars and Dr. James Speck, joined forces in 2007 to figure out how to bring GaN LED technology to the market, riding on the assumption that GaN LEDs would produce more light and be more cost-effective in that they wouldn't rely on foreign substrates like sapphire or silicon carbide.