Speaker: Hiroshi Amano, Professor

Affiliation: Institute of Materials and Systems for Sustainability, Nagoya University, Japan

Date/Time: Monday, May 21, 2018, 1:30PM

Location: 2101 Engineering V

Transformative Electronics by Nitrides for Realizing Sustainable Smart Society

In the 2020s, nitride semiconductors such as BN, AlN, GaN, InN, and their alloys and heterostructures, are expected to play a key role in realizing next-generation personal information systems and social infrastructures. By 2020, more than 70% of general lighting systems in Japan, traditionally based on conventional incandescent lamps or fluorescent lamps, will have been replaced with LED lamps, by which the total electricity consumption can be reduced by about 7%. Conventional personal display systems such as LCD displays with LED backlight units and OLED displays have the problem of low efficiency because both displays have to use color filters. Direct-full color emission based on micro-LED pixels will be the key technology for next-generation high-efficiency personal information systems.

Nitride semiconductors are thought to be the only semiconducting materials that can be used in high power microwave and mm-wave devices, which will be employed in next-generation ultra-broadband 5G wireless communication systems. The energy loss of all electric power circuits such as inverters and converters can be reduced to one-tenth by replacing Si-based MOSFETs and IGBTs with GaN-based transistors and diodes. In future, many everyday objects are likely to be connected to the Internet, referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT). A concern about the IoT is the possibility of each system running out of battery power. If we can connect objects to achieve communication and energy transmission wirelessly regardless of the time and place, this concern can be addressed and we can realize a sustainable smart society. Therefore, realizing the Internet of Energy (IoE) is the first priority in achieving an IoT society. In future, the mobility of humans, such as by vehicles and airplanes, will be increasingly driven by electricity. In order that electric vehicles and airplanes can replace conventional vehicles, in addition to safe and large-capacity batteries, wireless energy transmission systems are essential. For next-generation wireless energy transmission devices it is necessary to realize both high-power and high- frequency operation.

To realize such novel devices and systems, we are trying to develop an open innovation platform. Details of our new space, “Center for Integrated Research of Future Electronics (CIRFE) Transformative Electronics Facilities and Commons”, known as C-TEFs and C-TECs, will be explained.

About the Speaker

Hiroshi Amano received his BE, ME and DE degrees in 1983, 1985 and 1989, respectively, from Nagoya University. From 1988 to 1992, he was a research associate at Nagoya University. In 1992, he moved to Meijo University, where he was assistant professor till 1998, associate professor till 2002, and professor till 2010. In 2011, he became professor at the Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University. In 2015, he became the director of Center for Integrated Research of Future Electronics, Institute of Materials and Systems for Sustainability, Nagoya University.

During his doctoral studies, Professor Amano was able to realize high-quality epitaxially grown GaN film with metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE), p-type GaN filmdoped with Mg while conducting research with Professor Akasaki. For the first time in history, he established the technology necessary for the production of blue LEDs, thus performing a great achievement in the development of the high-luminosity blue LED. Professor Amano is currently developing technologies for the fabrication of high-efficiency power semiconductor development and new energy-saving devices at Nagoya University. He has over 552 publications and 32 patents. Professor Amano shared the Nobel Prize in Physics 2014 with Professor Isamu Akasaki and Professor Shuji Nakamura for “the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources.”