Shuji Nakamura was born in 1954 in Japan on the island of Shikoku. He received his master's degree at the University of Tokushima in 1979.

He started his scientific and technological career outside mainstream Japanese technology, working as an engineer at Nichia Chemical, a small company working on phosphors (inorganic luminescent materials) in the countryside.

In Nichia Chemical's laboratory, with only a limited budget and modest support from company management, Nakamura developed the novel MOCVD technique. This enabled him to manufacture a bright-blue LED, which led in turn to a white LED and then to a blue laser.

In 1993 he stunned the optoelectronic community with the announcement of very-bright blue GaN-based light emitting diodes, LEDs. In rapid succession, he then announced a green GaN-based LED, a blue laser diode, and a white LED.

In 1994, Nakamura received his doctorate in engineering at the University of Tokushima. Five years later he left Japan to join the faculty of the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). At UCSB he has built up a significant research programme in new areas of nitride research.

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