Hiroshi Amano
Name in native script: 天野浩
active c. 1960, Hamamatsu, Japan
Japanese physicist, co-creator of the GaN technology behind high-efficiency blue LEDs.
As Akasaki's graduate student, Amano developed the AlN buffer layer letting GaN grow flat on sapphire (1985), then showed low-energy electrons 'dehydrogenate' and activate acceptors — solving the nearly two-decade-old p-GaN problem. He continues work on power semiconductors at Nagoya.
Nobel-winning work
Amano's two keys to the blue LED: the AlN buffer layer (1985) turning rough GaN into mirror-quality thin films; and the discovery that electron irradiation strips hydrogen from Mg acceptors, unlocking p-conduction. Without p-GaN there is no pn junction — and no light-emitting diode. It was the last missing link before Nakamura industrialized the blue LED.
Workplaces: Nagoya University
Japan