Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering honours LED pioneers
This year's Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering salutes five pioneers whose genius has literally lit up our world.
Nick Holonyak, George Craford, Russell Dupuis, Isamu Akasaki and Shuji Nakamura all made critical interventions in the development of Light Emitting Diodes, or LEDs.
From car headlamps to computer screens, their technologies' applications are now myriad and ubiquitous.
The men's achievements have earned them a share in a £1m ($1.4m) award.
They've also received a message of congratulation from Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal.
"A QE Prize winner must not only be a fantastic technical innovation, it should have global impact for the good of humanity; and we want it also to be something that inspires young people to become engineers. The story of LEDs is all that," Sir Chris Snowden, the chair of judges, told BBC News.
Read original full article