LEO ESAKI, Japan / USA Nobel Prize in Physics back    Leo Esaki was born in Osaka, Japan. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973. His early studies on quantum effects in heavily-doped germanium p-n junctions at Sony, Tokyo, led in 1957 to the discovery of the tunnel diode, also known as the "Esaki diode." It was for this research that he was awarded the Nobel Prize. In 1960 Esaki moved to the United States to work as a researcher at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, where Esaki and his co-workers pioneered research on semiconductor superlattices and quantum wells. This triggered a wide spectrum of investigations on man-made structures having served as precursors to the present activity on nanostructures in general. In 1992 Prof. Esaki returned to Japan, where he assumed the office of President, University of Tsukuba. In 2000 he took on a new challenge as President of Shibaura Institute of Technology. His current interest is centred on the reform and internationalisation of the Japanese education system. "It should be understood that the future is not a natural extension of the past and the present. Innovations and breakthroughs shape and form the future. The power of the human mind can be divided into two major categories. One is the power of the judicious mind which allows us to understand fundamental principles and to make discretionary judgments. The other is the power of the creative mind which allows us to create new ideas through perceptiveness and imagination. It is this form of intellectual creativity that provides the engine for progress and that has stimulated and sustained the advance of human civilisation.”     back