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The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano at Nagoya University, Japan and Shuji Nakamura of the University of California at Santa Barbara with the Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of efficient blue light emitting diodes, which led to the creation of modern LED light bulbs.

“Many of us are familiar with white-light LEDs in torches and mobile phones”, said the Academy when explaining the decision, “but the effective combination of blue LEDs and white phosphors provides an energy-saving solution that is not only replacing existing indoor incandescent and fluorescent lighting, but is ideal for making outdoor street lighting more efficient. The invention of the blue LED is just twenty years old, but it has already contributed to create white light in an entirely new manner to the benefit of us all.”

The LED lamp holds great promise for increasing the quality of life for over 1.5 billion people around the world who lack access to electricity grids: due to low power requirements it can be powered by cheap local solar power.

There is also a huge potential application for LEDs in the developed economies of the world. Replacing all incandescent and conventional fluorescent light bulbs for low-energy LEDs could boost energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States and Europe, according to the recent UN backed report Pathways to Deep Decarbonization (PDF).