Hiroshi Amano

Hiroshi Amano

Hiroshi Amano ( Japanese 天野 浩 , Amano Hiroshi ; born September 11, 1960 in Hamamatsu ) is a Japanese physicist who first manufactured blue light-emitting diodes in 1989 based on the pn junction with the semiconductor material gallium nitride (GaN). In 2014 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for this together with Isamu Akasaki and Shuji Nakamura .

Life

Amano earned a bachelor's and master's degree from Nagoya University in 1983 and 1985, and in 1989 he received his doctorate in the same position . In 1988 he began to work as a research assistant at Nagoya University, before he accepted a position as assistant professor at Meijō University in 1992. In 1998, Amano was promoted to associate professor there and was given a full professorship in April 2002 . Since 2010 he has been a professor at the Graduate School of Engineering at Nagoya University.

Amano had been a member of Isamu Akasaki's group since 1982 and has been researching the growth, characteristics and applications of gallium nitride semiconductors ever since. He is the author and co-author of more than 390 scientific publications and has contributed to 17 books.

He received the Nobel Prize for his collaboration with Akasaki at Nagoya University. The suitability of GaN as a material for the long sought-after light-emitting diodes and semiconductor lasers in the blue range of the spectrum had been known for a long time (they have a large band gap in the UV range), the problem was the production of crystals with good optical properties from this material. This was achieved in the late 1980s and early 1990s both Akasaki and Amano and independently Nakamura at Nichia Corporation. Both groups used the deposition of thin films from the gas phase ( metal-organic gas-phase epitaxy , metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy, MOVPE). They also overcame other problems such as the p- type doping of GaN. Akasaki and Amano noticed in this context that zinc-doped GaN crystals shone brighter under the electron microscope, which indicated that electron irradiation was useful for doping. Later they used magnesium for p-doping, and silicon was used for the n-doped layers in the heterostructures of the light emitting diodes. Blue light-emitting diodes made significant progress possible in entertainment electronics ( Blu-Ray-DVD , color flat screens).

Publications

• H. Amano, N. Sawaki, I. Akasaki, Y. Toyoda Metalorganic vapor phase epitaxial growth of a high quality GaN film using an AlN buffer layer , Applied Physics Letters, Volume 48, 1986, p. 353
• Hiroshi Amano, Masahiro Kito, Kazumasa Hiramatsu, Isamu Akasaki: P-Type Conduction in Mg-Doped GaN Treated with Low-Energy Electron Beam Irradiation (LEEBI) , Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. Volume 28, 1989, L2112-L2114,
• Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano, "Breakthroughs in Improving Crystal Quality of GaN and Invention of the p – n Junction Blue-Light-Emitting Diode", Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. , Volume 45, 2006, pp. 9001-9010
• Editor with James H. Edgar, Samuel Strite, I. Akasaki, C. Wetzel: Properties, Processing and Applications of Gallium Nitride and Related Semiconductors, EMIS Datareviews Series No. 23, Institution of Engineering and Technology, 1998, ISBN 978-0- 85296-953-3
• Published by: Proceedings 5th International Conference on Nitride Semiconductors (ICNS-5): Nara, Japan, 25-30 May 2003, Physica Status Solidi C, Wiley-VCH 2003
• with T. Kawashima, D. Iida, M. Imura, M. Iwaya, S. Kamiyama, I. Akasaki Metalorganic vapor phase epitaxial growth of nonpolar Al (Ga, In) N Films on lattice-mismatched substrates , in: Tanya Paskova ( Ed.), Nitrides with Nonpolar Surfaces, Wiley-VCH Verlag, 2008, pp. 101–118
• Editor with Tae-Yeon Seong, Jung Han: III-Nitride Based Light Emitting Diodes and Applications, Introduction Part A. Progress and Prospect of Growth of Wide-Band-Gap III-Nitrides, Springer 2013, ISBN 978-94-007-5862 -9

Awards

• 1994: Fifth Optoelectronics Conference A Special Award
• 1996: IEEE / LEOS Engineering Achievement Award
• 1998: Japanese Journal of Applied Physics Award for the best review paper (with Isamu Akasaki)
• 1998: British Rank Prize (with Isamu Akasaki and Shuji Nakamura)
• 2001: Takeda Award
• 2001: Marubun Academic Award
• 2003: Solid State Devices and Materials Conference Paper Award
• 2009: Nistep (National Institute of Science and Technology Policy) Researcher from the Ministry of Education of Japan
• 2011: Fellow at the Institute of Physics , London
• 2014: APEX / JJAP Editorial Contribution Award from the Japan Society of Applied Physics
• 2014: Nobel Prize in Physics together with Isamu Akasaki and Shuji Nakamura
• 2014: Order of Culture
• 2016: Member of the National Academy of Engineering

Individual evidence

1. ^ The Takeda Award. Retrieved October 7, 2014 . 

Web links

Commons : Hiroshi Amano  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Press release from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences , accessed October 7, 2014.
• Hiroshi Amano at Nagoya University , accessed October 7, 2014.
• Physics World, Nobel Prize 2014