A View of the Past, and a Look into the Future by a Pioneer By Jacques I. Pankove This forword will be a brief review of important developments in the early and recent history of gallium nitride, and also a perspective on the current and future evolution of this exciting field. Gallium nitride (GaN) was syn- thesized more than 50 years ago by Johnson et al. 1] in 1932, and also by Juza and Hahn 2] in 1938, who passed ammonia over hot gallium. This method produced small needles and platelets. The purpose of Juza and Hahn was to investiagte the crystal structure and lattice constant of GaN as...