IEDM – Leo Esaki Nobel Prize reciepient opens conference
December 10, 2012, IEDM, San Francisco—A special guest presentation from Leo Esaki opened the latest IEDM conference. This was a unique opportunity to hear a Nobel Prize winner describe his life and research, along with his view of science and research.
1947 was a very good year. The transistor was invented and Esaki graduated from the University of Tokyo with a BS in physics. After getting his Ph.D, he worked at Sony where his research on heavily-doped Ge and Si resulted in the discovery of the Esaki tunnel diode; this device constitutes the first quantum electron device. This work on ultra-thin junctions led to the discovery of a tunneling transport mechanism, the essence of the tunneling diode, named after its inventor.
His initial work in quantum electronic devices led to a job at IBM. There was a lot of research going on in the US and in device junction physics at that time. Further work defined the physics of the tunneling process, which needed a very thin—10 nm—junction. After determining that the negative resistance of the Esaki diode was due to a tunneling transport mechanism, Esaki moved on to super lattice structures and the discovery of the resonant tunneling diode.
Since 1969, Esaki has, with his colleagues, pioneered “designed semiconductor quantum structures” such as man-made superlattices, exploring a new quantum regime in the frontier of semiconductor physics. In 1973, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for his research efforts in electron tunneling in solids. This research has enabled further progress in other quantum devices. He has numerous awards from many organizations for his work, and has many citations of his work in the years since their initial publication.
Disruptive innovation changes the future. Judicious people undertake efforts to understand phenomenon while creative people make new things for others to understand. Most people cross over from creative to judicious somewhere in their mid 40’s. Most breakthroughs come from those under 45-years old. If you are under 45, you can make a big impact on the world. If you are over 45, you still might be able to influence the world, but you have to be one of the outliers.
