Nick Holonyak Jr.

John Bardeen Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Physics, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Most Important Technology of the Last 40 Years:

The transistor and all that has come from it: ICs, power devices, LEDs, and now LED lamps, lasers, optoelectronics, and so on.

Most Important Technology for the Coming Decade:

The semiconductor. It is the fundamental, the universal substance, the primary building material of electronics.

Technology That has Evolved in a Surprising Way:

The semiconductor—that is, its scale! Take away the semiconductor, and all of electronics—all of it!—collapses, along with all of the world's economies. Everything stops! Is anything else that big?