Dr. Hideo Hosono is an honorary and institute professor of Institute of Science Tokyo (former: Tokyo Institute of Technology) and a distinguished fellow & a group leader at National Institute for Materials Science, Japan. He received a Bachelor Degree and Ph.D. (thesis: electron spin resonance in oxide glasses) in Applied Chemistry from Tokyo Metropolitan University in 1977 and 1982, and became a full professor of Tokyo Tech in 1999 via Nagoya Tech, Institute for Molecular Science and Vanderbilt University.
He studied point defects in amorphous SiO2 and worked on creation of photosensitive glasses utilizing point defects, nonlinear photonic glasses by ion implantation and protonic conductive glasses. After these researches, he shifted his main subject to cultivation of electro-active functionality in transparent oxides in 1993. His research focus is creation of novel functional materials based on own design concept. The representative achievements are material design of transparent oxide semiconductors such as InGaZnOx (IGZO) and their thin film transistors (TFT) applications for the state-of the art displays (liquid panel displays in tablet PCs such as iPads, smart phones and watches, and OLED-TVs are driven by his invented IGZO-TFTs), creation of stable electrides and their application to catalysts for green ammonia synthesis, and discovery of high-Tc iron-based superconductors (IBSCs) which led to the 2nd research fever since high-Tc cuprates in 1986.
Hosono served a member of science council of Japan, the president of the Materials Research Society of Japan and the current president of the Ceramic Society of Japan, and are honorary members of Materials Research Society (MRS), Chemical Society of Japan, Applied Physics Society of Japan. He received various honors including the Japan Prize, von Hippel Prize (MRS), J. McGroddy Prize (APS), Karl Fredrich Brawn Prize (SID), Eduard Rhein Award (Germany), Gordon E.Moore Medal (ECS), and Imperial Prize (the Japan Academy), and is a Thomson Reuter Citation Laureate, a highly cited researcher and a foreign fellow of the Royal Society.