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 transistor Light-emitting transistor A light-emitting transistor or LET is a form of transistor that emits light. Higher efficiency than light-emitting diode (LED) is possible. Reported in the January 5, 2004 issue of the journal Applied Physics Letters, Milton Feng and Nick Holonyak, the inventor of the first practical light-emitting diode (LED) and the first semiconductor laser to operate in the visible spectrum, made the world's first light-emitting transistor. This hybrid device, fabricated by Feng's graduate student Walid Hafez, had one electrical input and two outputs (electrical output and optical output) and operated at a frequency of 1 MHz. The device was