Illinois native remembered for being pioneer of LED lighting
CHICAGO (CBS) – Nick Holonyak Jr., a renowned innovator of illumination and longtime University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign professor died last month at the age of 93.
Holonyak is credited with the development of the first practical visible-spectrum LED, now commonly used worldwide in light bulbs, device displays and lasers.
He was one of the earliest researchers in semiconductor materials and a pioneer in the field of optoelectronics, devices that convert electricity into light or vice versa. Holonyak also contributed to technologies in household dimmer switches, lasers that run CD and DVS players, fiber-optic communication lines, and other electronics and communications devices.
Holonyak was born in Zeigler, Illinois, as a son of an immigrant coal miner. He worked on the Illinois Central Railroad before attending the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he received his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees.
He worked for Bell Labs, the U.S. Army Signal Corps and General Electric before joining the University of Illinois faculty in 1963.
