The realization of SiC semiconductor power devices has been highly expected to contribute to energy saving, however, it requires overcoming various technological barriers. AIST has been contributing to this objective for more than 15 years mainly through participation in national projects. Corresponding to the changes of organization of the institute, in this paper, R&D activities for the past years are described in three parts, i.e., 1) the R&D targets, 2) the major issues and strategies for overcoming them and the main results, 3) the evaluation of the validity of the strategies, and lastly, future issues are suggested.

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Industrial application of diamond has been limited to the use of its hardness, e.g., in machining tools, because large size crystals of diamond are difficult to synthesize and very expensive. If these problems are solved, it can be used for various purposes. Diamond is called ‘an ultimate semiconductor’and is located after SiC or GaN in the semiconductor roadmap. If power electronic devices with diamond are realized which utilize its operability under high temperature and the highest thermal conductivity among all materials, the inverters for automobiles can be operated without cooling devices, which lead to energy saving through the reduction of power loss as well as the reduction of weight of the cooling system. The purpose of this paper is to report the process of enlarging the size of single-crystalline diamond using vapor phase epitaxy and the fabrication of diamond wafers.

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A geochemical map of the whole of Japan has been drawn for the first time by surveying the distribution of elements in land and sea throughout Japan. This map revealed the natural background of the elements distribution and allows us to know the continuous flow of elements from land to sea. The samples used in this work are 3024 riverbed sediments and 4905 seabed sediments and 53 elements including toxic elements of As, Hg, Cd, etc. have been analyzed. In this research, a new survey method has been established for a certain district at first and then it has been applied to the whole of Japan with modification taking realistic operability into consideration, and the object has been extended from land, sea to soil. The geochemical map is also used for evaluating the pollution of soils and marine sediments resulting from human and industrial activities. The results have been made public through publication and website and have had various social impacts. In this paper, the research scenario adopted to compose the geochemical map of Japan is first described, then a series of research processes are described starting from material sampling and treatment chemical analysis, measurement of element concentration, composition of geochemical map to data release.

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Japanese manufacturers have played key roles in developing practical vehicle navigation systems (hereinafter “NAVS”). The NAVS have spread throughout the world and have become extremely useful. The market size in Japan alone is considered to exceed 5 hundred billion yen a year. This system could not have been achieved without the development of a scheme to create a nationwide digital road map, subsequent map creation, methodology to provide traffic information to vehicles, GPS development and its utilization in the United States. Much effort has been directed toward laying down infrastructure comprising these factors. Furthermore, it has been also necessary to develop the required software and hardware for the NAVS including location detection techniques such as map-matching, gyro sensors, displays, memory and microprocessors. The NAVS are presently evolving as onboard information communication systems. This report describes their development and commercialization, which started even before the requisites for the NAVS developed fully, from a development management perspective.

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Hard materials made of ceramics combined with metals are used for dies and cutting tools that support high precision processing technology in Japan. Hard materials, however, need a large amount of rare metals that are scarce as resources as component and hence developing new materials with less dependence on rare metals has been expected. We developed a new hard material with Fe-Al intermetallic compound as a binder. This material was synthesized by a process combining casting and powder metallurgy and exhibited high hardness and high strength simultaneously. This paper introduces an approach to “Type2 Basic Research” in order to apply the developed material to industrial use, and a method of efficient research and development through the collaboration of researchers of different specialized fields.

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In the field of medical research, the research where the result of basic research is utilized in society in the form of therapy is called clinical research. President Higuchi of the National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry (NCNP) and Editor in Chief Ono of Synthesiology discussed the situation of clinical research in Japan. They also discussed the common goals of clinical research in the medical field and Synthesiology.

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