Texas Tech University’s Hongxing Jiang, a Horn Distinguished Professor, co-director of the Center for Nanophotonics and an Edward E. Whitacre Jr. Chair in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, recently was honored by the International SSL (Solid-State Lighting) Alliance (ISA) with its Global SSL Award of Outstanding Achievements for his invention of microsized light-emitting diodes, or microLED.

“It is my great pleasure and honor to receive this outstanding award,” Jiang said. “From a vision and dream of more than 20 years ago, it is fascinating to see that our original invention and development of microLED and microdisplay have led to such worldwide research and development efforts in this technology.”

MicroLED was first proposed and realized in 2000 by Jiang and his wife Jingyu Lin, a Horn Distinguished Professor, Linda F. Whitacre Chair in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering and co-director of the Center for Nanophotonics.

In 2009, Jiang and his collaborators at Texas Tech realized the first active driving high-resolution and video-capable microLED microdisplay in video graphics array (VGA) format (640 x 480 pixels) via heterogeneous integration of microLED array with silicon complementary metal oxide semiconductor (Si CMOS) active-matrix driver.

“I also would like to recognize Professor Lin’s contribution to the invention and development of microLED and microdisplay,” Jiang said.

MicroLEDs and microdisplays have important applications in large, flat-panel displays with extremely high brightness and contrast, as already being demonstrated by companies including Sony and Samsung; in optical communications such as Li-Fi, a wireless communication technology that utilizes visible light to transmit data and position between devices; in medical and health for optogenetics and neuroscience; and in entertainment for augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and 3D displays with high resolution and high speed.

“Many technology giants like Apple, Google and Facebook are now working on this technology,” Jiang said. “It is very satisfying to visualize that, in the future, we could wear a microdisplay like iGlasses developed using microLED technology just as we use smartphones today.”

Jiang received the award jointly with Martin Dawson, the director of research in the Institute of Photonics at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. Previous winners of this award include a Nobel laureate in Physics and recipients of the National Medal of Science and National Medal of Technology awards.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: TTU MicroLED inventor receives prestigious international award