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Awards & Prizes

DATE2024.12.24 #Awards & Prizes

Professor Nobuhiro Yanai won the 2024 Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Prize


Professor Nobuhiro YANAI

Light is produced and annihilated through interaction with electrons in molecules,and such electrons are excited to an active state. Prof. Nobuhiro Yanai was awarded the prestigious JSPS Prize for his pioneering and innovative achievements in the fields of photon upconversion and spin hyperpolarization using the electronic state called the photoexcited triplet state.

In the field of photon upconversion, two photo-excited triplet molecules are used to create light with higher energy than the incident light. Professor Yanai has developed molecules that can utilize and emit a wide variety of light, from infrared to visible and ultraviolet light, and improved luminescence efficiency, innovated luminescence mechanisms, and showed the potential applications in photochemical reactions and optogenetics.

Furthermore, by transferring the electron spin polarization of the photo-excited triplet state to the nuclear spin of water protons, he pioneered a new method to improve the sensitivity of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy that is used in MRI diagnostics. These studies are interdisciplinary research that straddle a wide range of fields such as physical chemistry, functional materials science, photochemistry, and biology, using the control of photo-excited triplet states by precise molecular design as a basis. I am confident that Professor Yanai will continue to lead the development of this fascinating and unexplored field of light and electrons.

We would like to express our sincere congratulations to Professor Yanai on receiving this award and wish him continued success in his future endeavors.

Announcement of the Recipient of the 21st JSPS Prize (2024)

 

(Responsibility: Professor Teppei Yamada, Head of Department of Chemistry)