LED stands for Light-emitting diode and has been in practical use since the 1960′s, though the technology has been known since about the turn of the century. In 1907 a British scientist by the name of H.J. Round discovered the process of electroluminescence. He discovered this through his observation of a cat’s-whisker detector, which is a thin piece of wire that touches a semi conductor. It was during his many experiments in the Marconi lab that he noticed that light was actually given off when a contact between the wire and the semiconductor was made. Later independent work by a Russian scientist, Oleg Vladimirovich Losev, also detected the existence of the same LED light in 1927 but it would not be until the latter half of the century that this technology would prove useful
In 1955 a one Rubin Braunstein began to use gallium arsenide and the basis for practical use was accomplished. In 1961 the first practical LED was perfected by Nick Holonayk Jr. who accomplished the first visible spectrum use of LED lights. As the years went by various lights of different colors were developed.
It would not be until the 1980′s when the use of a new material, gallium aluminum arsenide, that a boom in the use of LED’s would begin. Using this new material the LED lights became brighter and efficient and were technologically superior to all previous LED lights. Later Toshiba would develop the metal oxide chemical vapor deposition growth process to reflect 90% of light and increase efficiency again.