Lighting the way.
by Thomas Sedor (C-RS, Orland Park, IL),
edited by Charlotte Pribish Conjelko (C-RS, Hobart, IN)
Published in New Rusyn Times 2015, Vol. 22, No. 1
Excerpted from the original by Peter Simkins Sluk (C-RS, Cleveland, OH)
Andy Warhol may have created art that made people see objects in a different light. However, Nicholas Holonyak Jr. pioneered an electronic device that has made people see the world in a different light: the visible-spectrum light-emitting diode (LED). While Warhol may be one of the more well-known Rusyn innovators, Holonyak is the Rusyn innovator who has had the most impact on modern-day life. If you have ever played on an iPad, watched an LED TV, listened to a CD or DVD, flipped on a dimmer switch, read time on an LED watch or clock, obtained directions with a GPS, made a phone call on a cellular phone, put up LED Christmas lights or even used a laser pointer to entertain your cat, then you can thank Nicholas Holonyak Jr.
Background
Nicholas Holonyak Jr., now 86 years young, was born in Ziegler, Illinois on November 3, 1928. His mother, Anna, and father, Nicholas Holonyak Sr., were both from the Carpathian Mountains in Eastern Europe. His father, born in Novoselycja, Mižhirja district (then Maramoroš County), moved to the United States in 1909 and his mother, from a village near Chust, arrived in 1921. They were married in Illinois and also had a daughter Evelyn, two years younger than Nicholas Jr. In addition to working in the coal mines in Illinois, Nicholas Sr. also worked in the coal mines in Pennsylvania.
Holonyak Jr.’s hard work, persistence and innovation began as a child with inquisitiveness about how things work and how to make them better. Working long hours as a railroad track laborer and knowing that his father almost died in a coal mining accident gave Holonyak Jr. a different perspective on life. He decided to become the first member of his family to attend college, where he was active in gymnastics and swimming to keep his mind and body in top shape. In 1950, 1951 and 1954, he graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees, respectively, in electrical engineering. In 1955, while working at Bell Labs in Murray, N.J., he married his wife Katherine Jerger. Holonyak also served in the military and did a tour of duty in Yokohama, Japan from 1956 to 1957.
During his interviews with technological societies over the past several decades, Holonyak discussed not only his innovations, but the childhood that spurred his interest in science. In these technical interviews, Holonyak shares many childhood stories and Carpatho-Rusyn history while speaking in English and Rusyn. He is thankful that he was born in the United States, as he otherwise would not have had the opportunity to obtain the knowledge in school and gain access to the tools needed to be innovative. However, Holonyak also never forgot his Rusyn past and how it inspired his tenacious work ethic.
Holonyak told a story in an interview about his father wanting him to dig holes in the yard to plant a garden1: I said, “I’m going fishing.” And he says, “Kopaj”! That means “dig”. And I dig some more with him… I said, well, I’ve got enough worms, I’m going to go fishing. I replied to him in English. And he says again, “Kopaj!” … I’ve got one of these tobacco cans…and I’ve got worms in there. I say, “I’ve got enough worms. I’m going to go fishing with this.” Earthworms. Then he says [that] he’s had enough of that. And he says, “Ah, de budeš spaty?” Where are you going to sleep? See, I know what he was saying: You didn’t put the roof up there. You’re not feeding the place and all that. You’re doing what I tell you to do… He felt very strongly that if you don’t produce, what’s your right to eat…if you don’t work? He didn’t believe in Social Security. He just didn’t believe in it. He said, “How can you get paid for not working?”
A Lifetime of Innovation
Holonyak developed the first visible-spectrum red LED and a multitude of other innovations which have led to the development of many modern-day conveniences we now take for granted. Over 50 years ago, Holonyak envisioned that his LED would someday replace the incandescent light bulb – and this prophesy has come true in recent years as the LED has proven to be a more efficient and reliable light source than incandescent bulbs.
Holonyak has had a significant innovation in technology in each of the past 6 decades:
1950s: While working at Bell Labs in 1955, Holonyak developed the first silicon electronic p-n-p-n switch, which he improved upon at General Electric in 1956. This innovation paved the way for reliable transistors, thyristors and other electronic components – this technology is still used to this day in power tools, household dimmer switches, automobile ignition circuits and door locks.
1960s: In 1962, Holonyak invented the world’s first red- colored Light-Emitting Diode (LED) while working at General Electric in Syracuse, New York – this was the first LED visible to the human eye that is a precursor to modern-day high-efficiency LED lighting and other modern electronic devices.
1970s: In 1977, Holonyak and his University of Illinois team invented the first working “quantum-well laser” that operates at room temperature – today’s LEDs and lasers produce more light and are more efficient as a result of this innovation.
1980s: In 1980, Holonyak and his research team at the University of Illinois devised Impurity Induced Layer Disordering (IILD) – this technology led to more reliable lasers for DVD player and optical storage drives.
1990s: In 1990, at the University of Illinois, Holonyak and John M. Dallesasse disclosed their “III-V oxidation” technological innovation (using elements from the third and fifth columns of the periodic table) – this technology is critical to the manufacture of highly-reliable LEDs and Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers (VCSEL’s), the latter of which are used in high-speed optical telecommunication systems.
2000s: In 2004, Professor Emeritus Holonyak and his University of Illinois research team, including Milton Feng, devised the “transistor laser”, the world’s first electronic transistor that produces not only electricity but also light.
A transistor turns electric current on and off, and an LED is a switch that turns lights on and off. The transistor laser can bring electronics and optics together by doing both. The transistor laser may be one of the most influential technological innovations of the last decade that may someday revolutionize broadband communications and supercomputing. In the near future, when common computers use light pulses as well as electrical current to transfer information through their internal electronic brains, the world will unknowingly thank a Rusyn for this technology.
Awards, Medals and Honors
In light of his career of innovations, Holonyak has received many awards and has been honored by several presidents. Holonyak received the Global Energy International Prize from Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin in 2003. He also received the National Medal of Science from President George Bush, Sr. in 1990 and the National Medal of Technology from President George W. Bush in 2003. Only five people have received both of these prestigious awards from United States presidents.
Spurned for the Nobel Prize But Won the Draper Prize
In 1962, Holonyak invented the first LED which was visible to the human eye, the red LED. Since that time, visible-spectrum yellow, orange-red, green, blue and white LEDs have been developed as a result of Holonyak’s work.
On October 1, 2010, the physics.org website predicted that Holonyak would receive a Nobel Prize for his work on the LED. However, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded on October 10, 2014 to the three professors that developed the blue LED in 1997. No one, including Holonyak, was awarded the Nobel Prize for research work on visible-spectrum LEDs that were invented many years prior to the blue LED.
Holonyak’s wife, Katherine, stated that for several years her husband assumed he would not get the prize for his red LED and appeared to be accepting of that fact. However, the latest Nobel Prize news was upsetting to Holonyak. Holonyak was interviewed by the Associated Press about the recent Nobel Prize from an assisted living facility in Urbana, Illinois. “The LED as you know it today comes from us,” Holonyak said.
“The blue LED? You cannot get to it, cannot (without that)… I’m an old guy now,” he added. “But I find this one insulting.” Holonyak spoke highly about all of the pioneers that worked to develop other LEDs that also did not receive a Nobel Prize. “I don’t think it’s fair to (them),” Holonyak said of those LED pioneers.
Holonyak on Ingenuity : I’m not a chemist or a metallurgist, but I made the [red LED] alloy crystals myself because I couldn’t get them—they didn’t exist—and I needed and wanted them, and I had a way to do it. I followed my own notions on how to grow GaAsP and make red- spectrum p-n junctions.
A glimmer of light appeared in January 2015, as Holonyak and two of his former University of Illinois students, George Craford and Russell Dupuis, received the Charles Stark Draper Prize for engineering and pioneering LED technology. Holonyak stated that “This is the biggest prize of the National Academy of Engineering. They regard it as the equivalent of the Nobel Prize.” We still hope that the Nobel Prize committee keeps our Rusyn inventor in mind for future Nobel Prizes, as his red LED paved the way for many modern-day technologies. But the legitimacy of the Draper Prize sheds light on the accomplished life of our luminary, Nicholas Holonyak Jr.
Andy Warhol is associated with the expression, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” Holonyak’s name should be world-famous for all future generations – not just 15 minutes. Paparazzi did not snap pictures of Nicholas Holonyak Jr. and post them for the world to see every time he developed a new game-changing technology. So it’s important that we spread the word of Holonyak’s life- time of achievements, as his innovations have paved the way for many technologies we use on a daily – if not hourly – basis.
Review the following informative videos online and share them for the world to see:
- “Nick Holonyak, Jr., 2004 Lemelson-MIT Prize Winner”
- “A Brilliant Idea: Nick Holonyak, Jr. and the LED”
Peter Simkins Sluk is enthusiastic about re-discovering his Rusyn heritage, and has been enjoying learning about Rusyn culture and history. Peter and his family have danced with Living Traditions Folk Ensemble, a Rusyn & Polish folk dance troop, for the past three years. Peter is a member of the Carpatho-Rusyn Society and a volunteer for Our People.
