The History of The Lightbulb

By Bayem

  • Platinum Filament Lightbulb

    By Humphrey Davy. Dull light.
  • Period: to

    Humphrey Davy

    Humphry Davy invented the first electric light. He experimented and invented an electrical battery, which he used to run an electrical current through a piece of carbon/platinum. This is now known as the Electric Arc lamp. It is too bright for most uses, and not very durable.

  • Carbon Filament Lightbulb

    By Humphrey Davy. Now known as an Electric Arc Lamp. Very bright (too bright for practical use), but short-lived.

  • Vacuum Bulb

    Joseph Swan, a chemist, develops a bulb with a vacuum pump, to reduce blackening of glass.

  • Nitrogen-filled Lightbulb

    Canadians Henry Woodward and Mathew Evans file a patent. It is an incandescent lightbulb with carbon rods in a nitrogen filled bulb.

  • Carbon Filament - Edison and Lewis

    Lewis Howard Latimer and Thomas Edison discover that filaments emit gases, destroying the bulb’s vacuum and causing blackening. They developed a carbon Filament in response to this, that ran 40 hours during a test on October 19. Others could only achieve a burn time of a few minutes during that time.

  • Carbonised Bamboo Lightbulb

    Thomas Edison & team make a carbonised bamboo Filament lightbulb with a burn time of 1200 hours.

  • First Mercury Fluorescent Lanp

    Peter Cooper Hewitt patents first mercury vapour fluorescent lamp.

  • Tungsten Filaments

    General Electric Company files a patent for tungsten filaments. Edison knew that tungsten filaments would turn out to be the best option, but at the time it was too hard to manufacture such thin wires.

  • Henry Joseph Round Notices Precursor to LED Tech

    British Henry Joseph Round of Marconi labs notices a yellow glow when silicon carbide is run through with a current.

  • First Commercial Fluorescent Lamp

    George Inman leads a group of General Electric scientists to make first commercial fluorescent lamp. It is sold in 1938.

  • LED Effects Observed

    Gary Pittman and Bob Biard from Texas Instruments find that that gallium-arsenide diodes emit infrared light every time it is connected to current.

  • First LED (red light)

    Nick Holonyak Jr., of General Electric, develops first visible light LED. It emits a red colour.

  • LED Commercialism

    Fairchild Semiconductors succeeds in reducing LED price from $200 per piece to 5 cents each.

  • First Yellow LED

    M. George Craford, graduating from Holonyak, invents first yellow LED and also a brighter red one. Thomas P. Pearsall developed high brightness light-emitting diode in 1976, for use with fiber optics in telecommunications. Shuji Nakamura of Nichia Corporation made first blue LED in 1979 but it was too expensive for commercial use until 1994. Light emitting diodes can now be made in one or in more colors.

  • First Useful LEDs

    Thomas P. Pearsall develops high brightness LEDs for use in fiber optic telecommunications.

  • First Blue LED

    Shuji Nakamura of Nichia Corporation makes the first blue LED. It is too expensive to use commercially until 1994. Multiple colour LEDs can now be made.