This effect was first seen by Russian physicists in the 1960s in A.F.Ioffe Physicotechnical Institute, Leningrad, Russia. Subsequently, it was studied in semiconductors such as indium antimonide (InSb), germanium (Ge) and indium arsenide (InAs) by workers in West Germany, Ukraine (Institute of Semiconductor Physics, Kyiv), Japan (Chiba University) and the United States. It was first observed in the mid-infrared (3-5 µm wavelength) in the more convenient diode structures in InSb heterostructure diodes by workers at the Defence Research Agency, Great Malvern, UK (now QinetiQ). These British workers later demonstrated LWIR band (8-12 µm) negative luminescence using mercury cadmium telluride diodes.
Later the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington DC, started work on negative luminescence in mercury cadmium telluride (HgCdTe). The phenomenon has since been observed by several university groups around the world.