(1) Press release: New Light to Illuminate the World. Nobel Prize in Physics, Oct 7, 2014
www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2014/press.html
(“Red [‘invented in the end of the 1950s’ see (1)(a)] and green diodes had been around for a long time but without blue light [of shorter wavelength], white lamps could not be created”)
Note: Toward the bottom of the Web page, click "Read more about this year's prize[:] Information for the Public"
(“Akasaki, together with Amano, as well as Nakamura, also invented a blue laser in which the blue LED,
the size of a grain of sand, is a crucial component. Contrary to the dispersed light of the LED, a blue
laser emits a cutting-sharp beam. Since blue light has a very short wavelength, it can be packed much
tighter; with blue light the same area can store four times more information than with infrared light.
This increase in storage capacity quickly led to the development of Blu-ray discs with longer playback
times, as well as better laser printers”)
(a) What does “p” and “n” stand for?
Eric Seale, Diode. In “The EncycloBEAMia; Your one-stop shop for MEAN reference material,” July 11, 2003
encyclobeamia.solarbotics.net/articles/diode.html
(“Russell Ohl at Bell Laboratories discovered that these materials [crystals] could be "doped" with small amounts of foreign "impurity" atoms to create interesting new properties. Depending on the selection of impurities (often called dopants) added, semiconductor material of two electricallly [sic]-different types can be created -- one that is electron-rich (called N-type, where N stands for Negative), or one that is electron-poor (called P-type, where P stands for Positive). Most of the ‘magic’ of semiconductor devices occurs at the boundary between P-type and N-type semiconductor material -- such a boundary is called a P-N junction. Ohl and his colleagues found that such a P-N junction made an effective diode”)
(b) section heading: “Fiat lux– let there be light”
(i) let there be light
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_there_be_light
(an English translation of the Hebrew; Other translations of the same phrase include the Latin phrase fiat lux)
(ii) fiat (v): a form of faciō do, make
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fiat
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