For his work he was awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics together with Isamu Akasaki and Shuji Nakamura for "the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources".

[2] Amano was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2016 for the development of p-type gallium nitride (GaN) doping, enabling blue semiconductor LEDs.

Since then, he has been doing research on the growth, characterization and device applications of group III nitride semiconductors, which are well known as materials used in blue light-emitting diodes today.

In 1985, he developed low-temperature deposited buffer layers for the growth of group III nitride semiconductor films on a sapphire substrate, which led to the realization of group-III-nitride semiconductor based light-emitting diodes and laser diodes.

In 1989, he succeeded in growing p-type GaN and fabricating a p-n-junction-type GaN-based UV/blue light-emitting diode for the first time in the world.