Martin Schubert, a doctoral student in electrical, computer, and systems engineering, was announced as the winner the Lemelson-Rensselaer Student Prize on Thursday, February 28 for developing the first polarized light-emitting diode. This new technology can be applied in the area of liquid crystal displays, used in everything from televisions and computer screens to cell phones and camera displays.
The Lemelson-Rensselaer Student Prize is awarded to a Rensselaer senior or graduate student who has “created or improved a product of process, applied a technology in a new way, redesigned a system or in other ways demonstrate[s] remarkable inventiveness.” In addition to the press coverage that the winner receives across the nation in both the science and business communities, there is a $30,000 prize. This prize is funded through a partnership with the Lemelson-MIT Program. The Lemelson-MIT Program has awarded the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize to students at MIT since 1995, after the nonprofit Lemelson-MIT Program was founded at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994 by Jerome Lemelsom and his wife Dorothy.
The applicants are reviewed by a panel of Rensselaer alumni including scientists, technologists, engineers, and entrepreneurs who select the winner. At the award ceremony last Thursday, Dorothy Lemelson presented the award to Schubert. He explains what went through his mind the moments after his name was announced, “I was totally stunned. Of course, I am thrilled to have been selected, and am extremely grateful to Mrs. Lemelson, to my advisors, my fellow graduate students, and to the Rensselaer administration who made it all possible.”
Schubert, a graduate of Cornell University who received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering, explains that when he came to Rensselaer he tried to first “figure out what the ‘next big thing’ could be.” The market of LCD displays and their backlighting lead Schurbet to the idea of making a polarized LED to improve the quality and efficiency of the display. Schubert focused primarily on the development of the polarized LED technology for just over a year before entering the contest.
Schubert describes the advantages of using polarized LEDs in LCD backlights instead of the conventional fluorescent backlights, “Polarized LED backlights would be more energy efficient, produce more saturated colors, and eliminate motion-blur problems.” In addition, the LEDs have application in free-space optical communication as well as in sensing and imaging applications.
Lemelson stated that the prize was “developed because of my husband’s great concern of what was happening in this country, during the late ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, when he saw us (the United States) giving up all of our industry to other nations.” Her husband was concerned that “young people were not going into the sciences and engineering and they were entranced by ephemeral things as music and television, things that were not going to advance society at all but weaken it.” It is with these concerns that the Lemelson Foundation was born, with the hope that it would give new icons for young people to look up to.
In recent years the program has expanded to other universities as well as to underdeveloped countries to stimulate inventing. Schubert gave advice to future applicants saying, “Don’t limit your vision; be confident and bold. Try to imagine a future where your invention is pervasive, and use that image as the core concept of your application.”
