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| The next time you wake up in the middle of the night,
staring at the red numbers on your alarm clock wishing they would
fade, you can thank Nick Holonyak. |
| Nick Holonyak was born in Zeigler in
1928 on November 3. During the depression, Nick`s family moved
to Madison County in the St. Louis area. Nick`s parents
emigrated from Europe when they were about twenty-one. His
father left everyone behind when he immigrated to Southern Illinois.
His mother`s uncle, who already lived in America, paid for her
way to America. His parents met in Southern Illinois while his
father was working as a coal miner. While Nick lived at home,
he heard not only English, but also Carpotho-Russian, since that was
his parents` native language. |
| Nick received his Bachelor`s in Science
in 1950: his Master`s in Science in 1951, and his Ph.D. in 1954.
All of these degree`s he obtained in Electrical Engineering
from the University of Illinois. In 1954, when he finished
graduate school, he worked as a member of the technical staff at
Bell Labs. Bell Labs is the research and development
department of AT & T. Nick also worked for the U.A. Army
Signal Corp and also General Electric. |
| While he worked at GE, Nick started his
first work on LED`s. He realized that he could shift the
infrared spectrum of a GaAs diode to the visible spectrum, which
turns it into GaAsP. He developed the first visible LED in
1962. LED`s glow red when current is applied. In simple
terms, an LED is anything that shows a digital readout, like a watch
or a clock. LED`s have intense brightness, long life, and
miniature size. These qualities made them popular until 1977,
when another type of diode took its
place. |
| Nick Holonyak wrote
Semiconductors Controlled
Rectifiers in 1964 and Physical Properties of
Semiconductors in 1989. Currently Nick is a professor at the
University of Illinois in the Electrical Engineering
department. |
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