Shuji Nakamura, inventor of the blue LED and laser diode, has resigned his position as head of R&D at Nichia Chemical Industries (Anan, Japan) to accept an appointment to the faculty of the College of Engineering at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB). He will be joining one of the outstanding gallium nitride (GaN) research programs in the world, including six professors and 30 graduate students.
Nakamura said his decision was twofold—before he chose a particular university, he had to decide to leave industry for academia. In a prepared statement he said, "I'm very grateful to Nichia for the superb opportunities it has provided me. But I felt that I had come to a crossroads in my life. I decided that an academic context would now be better." (See Laser Focus World, Sept. 1999, p. 57, for more on his background).