An American and two Japanese scientists won the 2014 Nobel Prize for Physics yesterday for inventing a new energy-efficient and environment-friendly light source, leading to the creation of modern LED light bulbs.

Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano of Japan and Japanese-born US citizen Shuji Nakamura won the prize for developing the blue light-emitting diode (LED) – the missing piece that now allows manufacturers to produce white-light lamps.

The arrival of such lamps is changing the way homes and workplaces are lit, offering a longer-lasting and more efficient alternative to the incandescent bulbs pioneered by Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison at the end of the 19th century.

The award is a notable example of a practical discovery winning the prize, in contrast to last year when the physics prize went to scientists who predicted the existence of the Higgs boson particle that explains how elementary matter attained the mass to form stars and planets.

Incandescent light bulbs lit the 20th century; the 21st century will be lit by LED lamps

“Incandescent light bulbs lit the 20th century; the 21st century will be lit by LED lamps,” the academy said in a statement awarding the eight million Swedish crown prize.

Frances Saunders, president of Britain’s Institute of Physics, said the shift offered the potential for huge energy savings. “With 20 per cent of the world’s electricity used for lighting, it’s been calculated that optimal use of LED lighting could reduce this to four per cent,” she said.

Nakamura invented the blue-light emitting diode while working at Nichia, an unlisted firm, but received next to nothing from the company for the work until 2004, when a Tokyo court ordered Nichia to pay him a record 20 billion yen ($185 million). The company appealed and Nakamura settled for about $8 million.