Honorary Member

Hiroshi Amano

Dr. Hiroshi Amano completed his post-doctoral work at Nagoya University Graduate School of Engineering in 1988, and received his Ph.D. in Engineering in 1989. He first took a position at Nagoya University in 1988, was assigned a lecturer at Meijo University Faculty of Science and Technology in 1992, then became an Associate Professor at the same university in 1998, and full Professor at the same university in 2002. In 2010 he became a professor at Nagoya University Graduate School of Engineering, a position he continues to hold today.   Throughout his career, Dr. Amano has focused on the growth, characterization, and device applications of group-III nitride semiconductors; that is, compounds of group-III elemental gallium, aluminum, indium, and nitrogen (AlGaInN). As an undergraduate student working in Professor Isamu Akasaki's laboratory in 1986, he succeeded in growing extremely high-quality gallium nitride (GaN) crystals for the first time by incorporating a low-temperature aluminum nitrate (AlN) buffer layer.   He found that silicon offered the optimum donor impurity for GaN, and n-type electrical conductivity could be readily controlled by silicon doping. Then in 1989, a p-type electrical conductor was implemented in GaN for the first time using magnesium as an acceptor impurity and electron beam irradiation, thus enabling p-n-junction-type GaN-based light emitting diodes (LEDs).   In 1995, it was found that the inter-band emission intensity of GaInN/GaN multiple quantum wells was markedly enhanced in narrow wells, and this yielded successful room-temperature stimulated emissions under pulse current in GaInN/GaN/AlGaN quantum well elements. This opened the way to blue semiconductor lasers, which enabled Blu-Ray optical discs for the first time.   More recently, Dr. Amano has broadened his research interest and made world-class contributions in one area after another including group-III nitride semiconductor-based technologies such as green lasers on silicon substrate, visible- and UV-light-emitting lasers for medical applications and 3D displays, solar spectrum LEDs, tandem solar cells, and ultra-high-power high-voltage switching devices, and a host of other applications.   In recognition of his remarkable achievements, Dr. Amano has received the IEEE / LEOS Engineering Achievement Award (1996), the Japan Society for Applied Physics Review Paper Award (1998), the Marubun Academic Award (2001), the Takeda Award (2002), the Solid State Devices and Materials (SSDM) Best Paper Award (2003), the Japanese Association for Crystal Growth (JACG) Best Paper Award (2008), and other commendations. In 2009 he was elected as a Fellow of the Japan Society of Applied Physics, and in 2014 Hiroshi Amano received the Nobel Prize in Physics together with Isamu Akasaki and Shuji Nakamura.   He has also played an active role in the IEICE as a member of the Technical Committee on Component Parts and Materials since 2010, by disseminating his finding to IEICE members and other academic and industrial communities through publication in the IEICE transactions, and in other Japanese and English technical journals, and through his substantive contributions in his field.   Given Dr. Hiroshi Amano's involvement in the IEICE and other relevant academic societies in Japan and around the world, and his remarkable achievements summarized above that have contributed much to the advancement of electronic, information and communication technologies, not to mention to the electronic and optical components industry, we hereby give our wholehearted endorsement to Dr. Amano as an Honorary Member of the IEICE.