Light-emitting diode light-emitting diode (U.S. Patent US3293513), the first practical LED. Immediately after filing the patent, Texas Instruments (TI) began a project to manufacture infrared diodes. In October 1962, TI announced the first commercial LED product (the SNX-100), which employed a pure GaAs crystal to emit a 890 nm light output. In October 1963, TI announced the first commercial hemispherical LED, the SNX-110. The first visible-spectrum (red) LED was developed in 1962 by Nick Holonyak, Jr. while working at General Electric. Holonyak first reported his LED in the journal "Applied Physics Letters" on December 1, 1962. M. George Craford, a former graduate
Light-emitting diode city-dwellers led to some controversy. So far high-pressure sodium lamps (HPS) with an orange light spectrum were the most efficient light sources commonly used in street-lighting. Now many modern street lamps are equipped with Indium gallium nitride LEDs (InGaN). These are even more efficient and mostly emit blue-rich light with a higher "correlated color temperature (CCT)". Since light with a high CCT resembles daylight it is thought that this might have an effect on the normal circadian physiology by suppressing melatonin production in the human body. There have been no relevant studies as yet and critics claim exposure levels are