The Solid State Lighting and Energy Center (SSLEC) is focused on new semiconductor based technologies for energy efficient lighting and displays, power electronics, and solar energy conversion. The objective of the SSLEC is to provide a forum for its members - key industry partners and the faculty and student researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara - to work in collaboration and across scientific disciplines to address the most challenging problems in these important and timely areas of research.

Electrical power is used inefficiently in cell phones, computers, appliances, automobiles, industrial equipment, and power distribution systems account for a tremendous waste of energy. New transistors based on gallium nitride (GaN) and related alloys offer a route to cut this waste significantly, providing energy savings compared to those expected from solid state lighting. Researchers in the SSLEC pioneered GaN based power transistors and continue to lead the world with new discoveries and inventions.

Through basic and applied research intimately tied to industrial goals, the members of the SSLEC will maintain their leadership in increasingly energy sensitive markets. The center boasts over 50 patents since 2007.

In The News

• UCSB Engineering Programs Rated Amoung Nations Best (link)
  The National Research Council (NRC) published its long-awaited report evaluating over 5,000 doctoral programs in 62 fields at 212 universities in the United States. Leading the rankings is the Materials Department, which was ranked number one over its entire range, and was the only science or engineering department in the country to be ranked so highly.
  
  
• CBS News: The Changing Shape of Light (link)
  Where America Stands: New ways are being developed to light our world, from the bendable to the organic.
  
  
• Shuji Nakamura is Awarded Prestigious Harvey Prize (full article pdf)
  In recognition of his seminal contributions to light sources based on nitride containing III-V semiconductors
  

(Full Press Listing can be found on our Press page)

(Top photo) Professor Shuji Nakamura is the recipient of the 2006 Millennium Technology Prize for his invention of the revolutionary new energy-saving light sources. Professor Nakamura astonished the scientific community with the first successful blue light-emitting diode (LED). The blue LED was the last step in the creation of the brilliant white LED, and ultra-efficient successor to Thomas Edison's incandescent light bulb of 1879.