The United Nations declared 2015 the International Year of Light to recognize the importance of light and light-based technologies in revolutionizing everyday life around the world and providing new and innovative solutions to global issues. To celebrate, UC Santa Barbara’s College of Engineering and Institute for Energy Efficiency (IEE) are hosting a symposium that is free and open to the public. 

The daylong conference will feature presentations and discussions by experts in the field. Three UCSB Materials faculty members — Herb Kroemer, Alan Heeger and Shuji Nakamura — received Nobel prizes for their light-based research and each will be discussing his work. Kroemer received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000 “for developing semiconductor heterostructures used in high-speed and optoelectronics,” while Heeger won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry that same year “for the discovery and development of conductive polymers.” Nakamura won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics “for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes, which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources.”

More details about the event, including how to RSVP, are at The UCSB Current.