PHYSICIST

Isamu Akasaki

1929 - 2021

Photo of Isamu Akasaki

Icon of person Isamu Akasaki

Isamu Akasaki (赤﨑 勇, Akasaki Isamu, January 30, 1929 – April 1, 2021) was a Japanese engineer and physicist, specializing in the field of semiconductor technology and Nobel Prize laureate, best known for inventing the bright gallium nitride (GaN) p-n junction blue LED in 1989 and subsequently the high-brightness GaN blue LED as well. For this and other achievements, Akasaki was awarded the Kyoto Prize in Advanced Technology in 2009, and the IEEE Edison Medal in 2011. He was also awarded the 2014 Nobel prize in Physics, together with Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura, "for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes, which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources". In 2021, Akasaki, along with Shuji Nakamura, Nick Holonyak, M. George Craford and Russell D. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Isamu Akasaki has received more than 274,239 page views. His biography is available in 68 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 62 in 2019). Isamu Akasaki is the 121st most popular physicist (up from 196th in 2019), the 56th most popular biography from Japan (up from 124th in 2019) and the most popular Japanese Physicist.

Amu Akasaki is most famous for being the inventor of the blue LED.

Memorability Metrics

  • 270k

    Page Views (PV)

  • 72.35

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 68

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 12.15

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 3.30

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Among PHYSICISTS

Among physicists, Isamu Akasaki ranks 121 out of 851. Before him are Walter Houser Brattain, Arnold Sommerfeld, Paul Langevin, Joseph von Fraunhofer, K. Alex Müller, and James Franck. After him are Javier Solana, Isidor Isaac Rabi, Julius von Mayer, C. V. Raman, Val Logsdon Fitch, and François Englert.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1929, Isamu Akasaki ranks 31. Before him are Christopher Plummer, Djalma Santos, Tigran Petrosian, James Hong, Sam Nujoma, and Alejandro Jodorowsky. After him are Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Rudolf Mössbauer, Lata Mangeshkar, Chet Baker, Hafizullah Amin, and Zdzisław Beksiński. Among people deceased in 2021, Isamu Akasaki ranks 13. Before him are Abdelaziz Bouteflika, F. W. de Klerk, Chun Doo-hwan, Christopher Plummer, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and Charlie Watts. After him are Carlos Menem, Bernie Madoff, Desmond Tutu, Raffaella Carrà, Bernard Tapie, and Roh Tae-woo.

Others Born in 1929

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Others Deceased in 2021

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In Japan

Among people born in Japan, Isamu Akasaki ranks 56 out of 6,245. Before him are Olivia de Havilland (1916), Chūichi Nagumo (1887), Emperor Ninkō (1800), Emperor Kōkaku (1771), Tadao Ando (1941), and Koxinga (1624). After him are Emperor Suizei (-669), Liv Ullmann (1938), Junji Nishikawa (1907), Empress Michiko (1934), Mako (1933), and Tsutomu Yamaguchi (1916).

Others born in Japan

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Among PHYSICISTS In Japan

Among physicists born in Japan, Isamu Akasaki ranks 1. After him are Hideki Yukawa (1907), Shin'ichirō Tomonaga (1906), Yoichiro Nambu (1921), Makoto Kobayashi (1944), Masatoshi Koshiba (1926), Syukuro Manabe (1931), Leo Esaki (1925), Toshihide Maskawa (1940), Shuji Nakamura (1954), Yoshio Nishina (1890), and Hiroshi Amano (1960).

Japanese born Physicists

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