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Program Summary

There is an enormous amount of different kinds of materials around us, and new materials continue emerging on daily basis. We call an organic or inorganic matter a “material” when it has a function in human society. Technical development is often achieved through materials innovation. In order to challenge the existing technological problems, such as natural resources, environment and energy, we aim for materials innovation which has “nanostructure” as a common platform.

If graduate students in materials science should contribute to society in their future, it is important for them to acquire the research capability to create innovative materials, and at the same time to have a basic knowledge on how to develop their successful research into business. Communication skills in English, as well as in their own native languages are also necessary. One of the objectives of the global COE is to further develop such oriented programs for young students; these programs were already implemented as part of the 21-COE program. We intend to collaborate with core universities/institutes of education and research in Asian countries, where materials research is rapidly growing. Through this collaboration, we aim to promote the research activity of the materials science group in Tokyo Tech to the world-level and to establish a center of education and research in Asia, which would be on or above the level of those in the USA and EU.

Outline of Activities in 21-COE and Project Plans of G-COE

In past and present, Tokyo Tech has been greatly contributing to industries through materials innovations. Examples of such innovations are ferrites discovered by Dr. Yogoro Kato and Dr. Takeshi Takei, and conducting polymers discovered by Dr. Hideki Shirakawa who was later awarded a Nobel prize. In our 21-COE program, we not only established novel educational programs but also continued with extensive materials research the results of which have been published in top-rank international journals.

The plans for the G-COE on the part of education include extending the Project Management (PM) and Nanomaterials Initiative (NI) courses, which have been successfully established in the 21-COE, into a new G-COE continuous PhD course. Through this course, we will create a comprehensive educational program in fundamental materials science. The program will produce human resources with global viewpoints, communication skills and abilities to grasp scientific, engineering as well as economical importance.

On the part of research, we will establish three groups: (1) nanoprobing and nanostructure control group, (2) photo-electronics functional development group, and (3) eco-materials group. Each of these groups has as its members scientists representing all kinds of materials, such as metals, organic materials and inorganic materials. We will continue our research based on our original ideas with the main aim to bring about materials innovation.

Project Leader, Hideo Takezoe
Department of Organic and Polymeric Materials