Advances of lighting technologies — From light bulbs to solid state light sources

Major breakthroughs that took place chronically in the light source development are: the invention of incandescence light bulbs, the invention of lasers, particularly semiconductor lasers, and the high-brightness blue/white LED. Two of these represent the major advances in the lighting technologies. It is further shown that what we called "nano-science and technology" today, had played a critical role in commercialization of these great inventions.