A cewar Knight Ridder, "The cheap and reliable semiconductor lasers critical to DVD players, bar code readers and scores of other devices owe their existence in some small way to the demanding workload thrust upon Downstate railroad crews decades ago". Holonyak ya sami digiri na farko (1950), na biyu (1951), da kuma digiri na digiri (1954) a fannin injiniyan lantarki daga Jami'ar Illinois a Urbana-Champaign. Holonyak shi ne John Bardeen na farko.
Rayuwa ta aiki mai wuya ba abin da yake so ba ne