Next time you admire a Christmas tree, think of physics laureates Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura who invented the blue light-emitting diode (LED) and made white energy-efficient and long-lasting fairy lights possible.
In the LED, electricity is directly converted into light particles – photons - leading to efficiency gains compared to other light sources, where most of the electricity is converted to heat and only a small amount into light.
While it was possible to create red and green light-emitting diodes, blue light remained a challenge until the laureates obtained bright blue light beams from their semiconductors and the gates opened up for a fundamental transformation of illumination technology.
While incandescent light bulbs lit the 20th century, today LED lights are behind many of our illuminations, including our Christmas trees!
Not only do LED fairy lights consume less energy, they are cooler (and therefore safer), sturdier and last long enough for about 40 Christmases, which is certainly something to celebrate.
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