Nick Holonyak

Nick Holonyak
Nick Holonyak
	Holonyak in 2002
Born	Nick Holonyak Jr.; November 3, 1928; Zeigler, Illinois, US
Died	September 18, 2022 (aged 93); Urbana, Illinois, US
Education	University of Illinois (BS, MS, PhD)
Known for	Invention of the laser diode
Awards	IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award (1973); IEEE Jack A. Morton Award (1981); IEEE Edison Medal (1989); National Medal of Science (1990); Charles Hard Townes Award (1992); NAS Award for the Industrial Application of Science (1993); Japan Prize (1995); Frederic Ives Medal (2001); National Medal of Technology and Innovation (2002); IEEE Medal of Honor (2003); Global Energy Prize (2003); Lemelson–MIT Prize (2004); Charles Stark Draper Prize (2015); Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering (2021);
	Scientific career
Fields	Optoelectronics
Institutions	General Electric (1957–1963); University of Illinois (1963–2013);
Thesis	Effect of Surface Conditions on Characteristics of Rectifier Junctions (1954)
Doctoral advisor	John Bardeen
Doctoral students	Russell Dupuis (1972); James J. Coleman (1975); John Dallesasse (1991);

Nick Holonyak Jr. (November 3, 1928 – September 18, 2022) was an American electronics engineer. He is noted particularly for his 1962 invention and first demonstration of a semiconductor laser diode that emitted visible light. This device was the forerunner of the first generation of commercial light-emitting diodes (LEDs). He was then working at a General Electric research laboratory near Syracuse, New York. He left General Electric in 1963 and returned to his alma mater, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he later became John Bardeen Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Physics.