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| Research Award Winners 2000 |
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 | | Prof. Dr. Ursula Schmidt-Erfurth, Lübeck, Germany, was given the award for her development of the basic principles behind photodynamic therapy on the eye.
This technique can be used to halt the impair- ment of vision caused by a condition known as wet, age-related macular degeneration, the principal cause of blindness in persons over 50 years of age. During her stay at the Wellman Laboratories of Photomedicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, from 1990 – 1992, Schmidt-Erfurth developed the concept of using the photodynamic principle on the eye on the basis both of her in-depth work on retinal disorders and of her examination and laser therapy of patients suffering from macular degeneration. |
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 | | Prof. Dr. Shuji Nakamura, Santa Barbara, USA, received the Carl Zeiss Research Award for the development of high-brightness blue light- emitting and laser diodes, permitting such applications as full-color displays and full-color indicators.
The blue LEDs join previously developed red and green light-emitting diodes to complete the palette of primary colors, enabling long-lasting, energy- efficient LEDs to dominate such niche applications as sports stadium displays. In future, white LEDs, which combine red, blue and green LED structures in one device, could eventually make conventional light bulbs obsolete. The shorter wavelength of the laser allows, for example, a fourfold increase in resolution in CD players and CD-ROM drives over traditional equipment, where infrared lasers are used to read the signals. |
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