Nobel loreate Shuji Nakamura said Thursday his U.S.-based company Soraa Inc. has opened an office in Yokohama, southwest of Tokyo, to market high-quality light-emitting diode lamps in Japan.

"Japan boasts the world's widest diffusion of LED lamps," said Nakamura, one of three Japan-born scientists awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing energy-efficient blue LEDs. "Although Japan is a tough market where customers are strict about quality, our success in Japan would lead to that in the world."

Nakamura, 60, now a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, cofounded Soraa in 2008 to offer lamps using purple LEDs he developed. They reputedly produce more natural white light than blue LED lamps.

"The subject of the Nobel prize was an outdated LED lamp with inferior white light," Nakamura told a press conference at the Yokohama office. "Soraa's white light can impress lighting designers and other professionals."

The Yokohama office plans to sell the high-quality LED lamps for use in hotels, restaurants and brand-name shops, with this year's sales target in Japan set at ¥300 million ($2.5 million).