Back in my IBM days at the University of Illinois, I was fortunate enough to be demonstrating some new IBM Personal System/2 hardware when I met an Illini electrical engineering legend: Nick Holonyak. Dr. Holonyak was born in 1928 and attended the University of Illinois for both undergraduate and graduate school. He was also John Bardeen’s (7/27 eNewsletter – Inventor of transistor) first student. One of Holonyak’s first inventions was the TRIAC, what is now commonly used as the dimmer switch. Later, Holonyak was responsible for the invention of the light emitting diode (LED). Holonyak didn’t come up with all of the different colors of LED’s that are available today, but his was the first and it was red. When you think of all of the places where LED’s are used, it’s truly amazing: monitors, keyboards, computers, stereos, video equipment components, digital cameras, cell phones, pop machines, automobile dashboards, stoplights, coffee makers, etc. Holonyak went on to create quantum well lasers which are now used in fiber optic communications. Earlier this year, Holonyak along with Dr. Milton Feng (8/25 eNewsletter – World’s Fastest Transistor) have created a light emitting transistor which may remove the need for wiring on a circuit board. Holonyak is one of only 13 Americans who have been recipients of both the National Medal for Science (1990) and the National Medal for Technology (2002) primarily for his creation of the LED. If you had a Mattel Electronic Football game in the late seventies, the reason both you and your opponents were red (you were the brighter player, hopefully) was due to Dr. Holonyak’s red LED’s which backlit the playing field.
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