If there’s one group of people among the general population who really love and appreciate the blue LED it is definitely reefers. A few years ago we barely used them over our reef tanks for anything more than a moonlight at $50 a watt. Today us marine, reef and coral enthusiasts are so into blue LEDs that most of us can riddle off our favorite shade of blue, it’s corresponding wavelength peak and the particular fluorescent colors they excite.
But that’s not all that blue LEDs light up, because high energy blue diodes are the foundation of all white LEDs as well so with the invention of blue LEDs we got both bright white lighting and colorful blue spectrums. Everywhere you look blue LEDs have transformed lighting packages, efficiencies, and we’re still seeing the steady march of solid state lighting dominance – heck you can even pick up LED bulbs at the grocery store and convenience shops.
As far as “greatest benefit to mankind is concerned, it’s easy to see why blue LEDs have been transformative of our world and its inventors rightly deserve to win a nobel prize. It was only in 1990 that blue LEDs were designed so in less than 25 years the bright and efficient blue diodes have fundamentally changed how we see the world, literally. As a reef aquarist and lighting enthusiast we are delighted to have such a personal connection to the newly announced Nobel Prize for the invention of the blue LED; big congratulations to Professors Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura, and thanks for helping make our corals pop! [BBC]
