The Super Silicon Crystal Research Institute Corp.(SSi), supported by the joint investment of the Japanese Government and private industry, has succeeded in making the world’s first φ400 mm silicon materials.　Bearing in mind that Japan has lagged behind in the development of simulation software and metrology-inspection technology, we must now take the lead in providing advanced technologies for industries worldwide.　There are a number of other important issues, such as the ability to generate our own concepts and the promotion of effective collaboration on developments among the industrial, governmental and academic sectors, which should be promoted.

A new concept of epitaxy named microchannel epitaxy (MCE) is described. In MCE, the lattice information of a substrate is transferred through narrow microchannels while the transfer of defect information is prevented by the presence of an amorphous film deposited on the substrate. Two types of MCE, vertical and horizontal MCEs, are discussed. In the present article a special focus is placed on explaining how the concept of MCE originated. It is pointed out that an understanding of the crystal growth mechanism is most important for the development of new technology in crystal growth. MCE of GaAs on Si is described and it is demonstrated that a wide dislocation-free area was obtained.

Atomically controlled PLD-growth of titanium dioxide films was established.　The development of a combinatorial thin film fabrication process and related techniques led to the discovery of room-temperature transparent magnetism in the transition metal doped TiO2 films.　After an overview of the history, the origin of its ferromagnetism is discussed, together with recent experimental progress.

A selective area metalorganic vapor phase epitaxial (SA-MOVPE) growth method for the formation of III-V semiconductor nanostructures is demonstrated.　During crystal growth, various kinds of facets appear at the mask edge, and facet formation can be controlled by the mask pattern and crystal growth conditions. Utilizing this faceting nature, we successfully fabricated single electron transistors (SETs) in order to form a conducting island connected with electrodes through tunneling barriers, and their integrated logic circuits. AND/NAND SET logic based on binary decision diagram (BDD) logic, and a SET one bit adder were successfully fabricated. We also apply this technique to form photonic crystals, nanowires which are as narrow as 50 nm, and two-dimensional Kagome lattices.

The stereo atomscope is realized by taking advantage of the circular dichroism in photoelectron angular distribution (PEAD), where the forward focusing peak positions rotate in the same direction as the circularly polarized X-ray electric vector. The rotation is caused by the angular momentum transfer from the circularly polarized X-ray to the emitted photoelectrons. The azimuthal shifts of the forward focusing peaks from the clockwise (CW) and counterclockwise (CCW) circularly polarized X-rays correspond to the parallax Here, some recent results of the stereo atomscope are introduced.

Recent advances in oxide thin-film growth techniques have enabled the engineering of oxide heterostructures with near-atomic precision.　Here, we present two independent approaches based on atomic-scale control to high-mobility electrons in SrTiO戌 heterostructures, as part of the exploration of the feasibility of realizing semiconductor modulation doping in perovskite oxide heterostructures. The first demonstration is electron modulation associated with the built-in potential due to surface band-bending, and the second one is based on controlled charge modulation at polarity discontinuity heterointerfaces.　In the latter case, we have observed dramatic magnetoresistance oscillations in a sample exhibiting a low-temperature Hall mobility reaching 10,000cm²/Vs.

Organic field-effect transistors are expected to be used in the manufacture of large-area low-cost integrated circuits, and are therefore suitable for the realization of large-area electronics.　In this article, we report on large-area organic transistor-based flexible pressure sensors, which we developed recently for artificial skin applications.

Rapid growth at the rate of 64 Ｌm for vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is achieved by chemical vapor deposition at atmospheric pressure with an iron film catalyst. The key is to feed the carbon source gas with a high rate increase of the concentration at the beginning stage of the growth. The resultant multi-walled CNTs are well crystallized and have an average diameter of 15 nm. The most provable mechanism is that the exposure of the catalyst to the highly concentrated carbon source gas is required for effective cap formation which is a crucial process for the growth of CNTs.

Reconstructed surface structure and real-time surface structure analyses were performed by using an in situ synchrotron radiation undulator X-ray diffractometer combining a goniometer and a MOCVD growth system. The P-rich InP (001) surface grown by MOCVD has a (2×1) super-structure, which consists of P-dimers. The real-time surface structure monitoring shows the relationship between the supply rate of gaseous sources and surface structures, and surface structure changing.

Low-temperature excitonic reflectance and luminescence spectra of the wurtzite ZnO semiconductor, which is one of the candidates for use in blue and ultraviolet light emitters, are introduced. Similarities and differences in the optical spectra between ZnO and GaN are discussed. Due to the large exciton binding energy, the optical spectra of ZnO were significantly dominated by excitonic polaritons, which are the coupled wave between excitons and the electromagnetic wave. The Rabi splitting of cavity polaritons in ZnO was calculated to be as large as 191 meV, which is the largest value known in semiconductor microcavities. The possibility of realizing room-temperature polariton lasers, a new coherent light source based on the Bose-Einstein condensation of exciton polaritons, is demonstrated.

When an electron wave passes through a semiconductor containing a p-n junction, the electron wave beneath the n-region and p-region has different phases because the two regions have different mean inner potentials.　Using electron holography, these potential distributions across a p-n junction can be visualized.　Recently, we succeeded in observing the two-dimensional electric potential distributions in a cross section of a MOSFET fabricated from a silicon wafer with a boron concentration of 1015 cm−3.　This implies that electron holography allows the two-dimensional mapping of dopant distributions as low as 1015 cm−3.　This paper describes the principle and the method of this analysis.　The application of this technique in the semiconductor industry is discussed.

Optical fibers with many air holes in the cladding are called "photonic crystal fibers". In the photonic crystal fibers, light is confined within the core region by air holes whose diameter is of the order of a wavelength of light. By using this particular structure, we can obtain various unique features which are not realized in conventional single-mode fibers, such as endless single-mode operation, controllability of dispersion and mode-field diameter, and extremely low bending loss. In this paper, we review these interesting features. Recent progress and applications of the photonic crystal fibers are also presented.

Manganese oxides with a perovskite structure have attracted great interest since they exhibit a variety of intriguing phenomena due to a unique coupling among the spin, charge, and orbital degrees of freedom of 3 d electrons. An example is colossal magnetoresistance (CMR). In the manganites, a decrease of the averaged radius of the A-site cations leads to an increase of the tilting of the MnO₆ octahedra, which causes the reduction of hybridization between the Mn 3 d eg and O 2p states, i.e., the effective one-electron bandwidth. In this report, we describe phase control in terms of the competition between the ferromagnetic metallic and charge/orbital ordered insulating phases for the single crystals of manganites.