LED-history

If you look in an encyclopedia, then it says that the LED was invented by four independent U.S. research groups in 1962. But because of the research published in the April (2007) number of Nature Photonics it turns out that the LED was actually discovered by a fairly unknown Russian genius around 40 years earlier.

Oleg Vladimirovich Losev was a radio engineer with a talent. In the middle of 1920 he noticed that diodes used in radio receivers radiates light when electricity runs through. Then, in 1927, he published details of the first LED in a Russian magazine. Nikolay Zheludev, University of Southampton has the story of Losev excavated.

Losev also published his discoveries in German and English magazines. In sixteen newspapers between 1924 and 1930 he told in detail the function of his LED. He then used Einstein's new quantum theory to explain the way in which electrons emit light without releasing much heat. But a letter he wrote to Einstein asking for help to develop the theory of the LEDs gave no response.