From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sumio Iijima (飯島 澄男 Iijima Sumio, born
May 2, 1939) is a Japanese physicist, often cited as
the discoverer of carbon nanotubes. Although carbon
nanotubes had been observed prior to his "discovery"1, Iijima's 1991 paper generated
unprecedented interest in the carbon nanostructures and has since
fueled intense research in the area of nanotechnology. For this and
other work Sumio Iijima was awarded, together with Louis
Brus, the inaugural Kavli Prize for Nanoscience in 2008.
Born in Saitama Prefecture in 1939, Iijima
graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering degree
in 1963 from the University of
Electro-Communications, Tokyo. He received a Master's degree in 1965 and completed
his Ph.D. in solid-state
physics in 1968, both at Tohoku University in Sendai.
Between 1970 and 1982 he performed research with crystalline materials and
high-resolution electron
microscopy at Arizona State University. He
visited the University of Cambridge during
1979 to perform studies on carbon materials.
He worked for the Research Development Corporation of Japan from
1982 to 1987, studying ultra-fine particles, after which he joined
NEC Corporation where he is still employed.
He discovered carbon nanotubes in 1991 while working with NEC. He
is also a professor at
Meijo
University since 1999. Furthermore, he is the director of the
Research Center for Advanced Carbon Materials,
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and
Technology and the dean of SKK Advanced Institute of
Nanotechnology (SAINT).
He was awarded the Benjamin
Franklin Medal in Physics in 2002, "for the discovery and
elucidation of the atomic structure and helical character of
multi-wall and single-wall carbon nanotubes, which have had an
enormous impact on the rapidly growing condensed matter and
materials science field of nanoscale science and electronics."
Research
Fields
Crystallography, Electron Microscopy, Solid-State Physics,
Materials Science
Professional
Record
- 1968 - 1974: Research Associate, Research Institute for
Scientific Measurements, Tohoku University, Sendai
- 1970 - 1977: Research Associate, Department of Physics, Arizona
State University, Tempe, Arizona
- 1977 - 1982: Senior Research Associate, Center for Solid State
Science, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona
- 1979: Visiting Senior Scientist, Department of Metallurgy and
Materials Science, University of Cambridge, Cambridge
- 1982 - 1987: Group Leader, ERATO Program, Research Development
Corporation of Japan, Nagoya
- 1987 - Present: Senior Research Fellow, NEC Corporation,
Tsukuba (Joined NEC in 1987 as Senior Principal Researcher)
- 1998 - 2002: Research Director, JST/ICORP "Nanotubulites"
Project Tsukuba and Nagoya
- 1999 - Present: Professor, Meijo University, Nagoya
- 2001 - Present: Director, Nanotube Research Center, National
Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST),
Tsukuba
- 2002 - 2006: Project Reader, NEDO "Advanced Nanocarbon
Application Project"
- 2003 - 2008: Research Director, JST/SORST (Japan Sci. &
Tech. Agency/Solution Oriented Res. And Tech. ) Iijima Team
- 2005 - Present: Dean, SKKU Advanced Institute of Nanotechnology
(SAINT, http://saint.skku.edu), Sungkyunkwan University,
Suwon, Korea.
- 2006 - Present: Project Reader, NEDO “Carbon Nanotube Capacitor
Development Project”
- 2007 - Present: Distinguished Invited University Professor of
Nagoya University, Nagoya
- 2008 - Present: Distinguished Invited Chair Professor for World
Class Univeristy (WCU) Program, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon,
Korea.
Honors,
Awards
- 1976: Bertram Eugene Warren Diffraction Physics Award, The
American Crystallography Society
- 1980: Seto Award, The Japanese Society of Electron Microscopy,
Japan
- 1985: Nishina Memorial Award, The Nishina Memorial Foundation,
Japan
- 1996: Asahi
Prize, The Asahi Shinbun Cultural Foundation, Japan
- 2002: Agilent Europhysics Prize, European Physical Society
- 2002: James C. McGroddy
Prize for New Materials, American Physical Society
- 2002: Benjamin
Franklin Medal in Physics, The Franklin Institute
- 2002: Honorary Doctor of the University of Antwerp
- 2002: Japan Academy Award and Imperial Award
- 2003: Honorary Doctor of EPFL
- 2003: Van Horn Lecture, Case Western Reserve University
- 2003: Person of Cultural Merit,
Japanese Government
- 2004: Honda Frontier Award, Honda Memorial Foundation,
Japan
- 2004: The Society’s Medal, The American Carbon Society
- 2005: Distinguished Scientist Award, Physical Sciences,
Microscopy Society of America
- 2005: Honorary Professor of Xi’an Jiaotong University
- 2005: Honorary Professor of Peking University
- 2006: The John M. Cowley Medal 2006, The International
Federation of Societies for Microscopy
- 2007: Gregori Aminoff Prize in crystallography 2007, Royal Swedish Academy of
Sciences
- 2007: Fujiwara Award, The Fujihara Foundation of Science,
Japan
- 2007: Foreign Associate, The National Academy
of Sciences
- 2007: Balzan
Prize for Nanoscience
- 2008: DOW lecture, Northwestern University
- 2008: The 2008 Plueddemann Award (Case Western University)
- 2008: The First Richard E. Smalley Research Award (The
Electrochemical Society)
- 2008: The Kavli Prize Nanoscience 2008.
- 2008: The Prince of
Asturias Award for Technical Scientific Research 2008 (The
Prince of Asturias Foundation)
- 2009: Order of Culture[1]
- and others
References
External
links
Japan
Wikis
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