蓝色LED发明者获诺贝尔物理学奖

Two Japanese scientists and a Japanese-American have won the 2014 Nobel Prize for Physics for inventing a new energy-efficient light source, the blue light-emitting diode (LED).

两位日本科学家和一位日裔美籍科学家因发明节能的蓝色发光二极管(LED)共同获得2014年诺贝尔物理学奖。

“With the advent of LED lamps we now have more long lasting and more efficient alternatives to older light sources,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in its Nobel citation.

“LED灯的出现，使得我们在传统光源之外，找到了更持久、更节能的光源，”瑞典皇家科学院在宣布今年获奖名单时说。“这项发明开启了一场照明革命。 白炽灯泡照亮了20世纪，而21世纪将被LED灯照亮。”

Isamu Akasaki, 85, and Hiroshi Amano, 54, of Nagoya University and Shuji Nakamura, 60, of the University of California, Santa Barbara, share the $1.1m prize.

这三名获奖人——来自名古屋大学的85岁的赤崎勇(Isamu Akasaki)和54岁的天野浩(Hiroshi Amano)，以及来自美国加州圣塔芭芭拉大学的60岁的中村修二(Shuji Nakamura)——将分享110万美元的奖金。

The three men were the first to produce bright blue light from semiconductors, triggering “a fundamental transformation of lighting technology”. Red and green LEDs had been known for decades but previous attempts to make blue LEDs had failed.

这三位科学家发明了从半导体中产生高亮度蓝色光的方法，带来了“光技术领域一场根本性的变革”。红色和绿色的LED光在数十年前就已出现，但蓝色LED光一直是技术难题。

The laureates’ research in Japan in the early 1990s solved the problem – and opened a huge new market for LED lighting because white light can be produced by adding blue to green and red.

这三位获奖者上世纪90年代初在日本的研究解决了这个难题。由于将蓝光加入绿光和红光中就能产生白光，他们的发明促成了一个巨大的LED光市场的产生。