Hideki Shirakawa facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Hideki Shirakawa
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Hideki Shirakawa in 2001
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| Born | August 20, 1936 Tokyo, Japan
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| Nationality | Japanese |
| Alma mater | Tokyo Institute of Technology (now Institute of Science Tokyo) |
| Known for | Conductive polymers |
| Awards | Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2000) Person of Cultural Merit (2000) Order of Culture (2000) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Chemistry |
| Institutions | University of Pennsylvania University of Tsukuba |
Hideki Shirakawa (白川 英樹, Shirakawa Hideki, born August 20, 1936) is a Japanese chemist and engineer. He is also a Professor Emeritus at the University of Tsukuba and Zhejiang University. He is famous for discovering conductive polymers. These are plastics that can carry electricity. He shared the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Alan MacDiarmid and Alan Heeger for this important work.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Hideki Shirakawa was born in Tokyo, Japan. He was the second son of a doctor who worked for the military. He had an older brother and sister, and a younger brother and sister. Olympic marathon champion Naoko Takahashi is a relative of his. When he was a child, he lived in places like Manchukuo and Taiwan. Around the age of eight or nine, his family moved to Takayama, Gifu, which was his mother's hometown.
Shirakawa studied chemical engineering at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech). He earned his first degree in 1961 and a higher degree (his doctorate) in 1966. After finishing his studies, he became an assistant at the Chemical Resources Laboratory at Tokyo Tech.
Discovering Conductive Plastics
While working as an assistant at Tokyo Institute of Technology, Shirakawa created a material called polyacetylene. This plastic looked like metal. In 1975, a scientist named Alan MacDiarmid visited Tokyo Tech and became very interested in Shirakawa's discovery.
In 1976, Shirakawa was invited to work with Alan MacDiarmid at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States. There, they worked with American physicist Alan Heeger. Together, they found a way to make polyacetylene conduct electricity.
In 1977, they made an important discovery. They found that adding a small amount of iodine vapor could make polyacetylene conduct electricity even better. It became as conductive as some metals. For this amazing discovery, the three scientists were given the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2000. Scientists believe that tiny changes in the plastic's structure, called solitons, help it conduct electricity.
Academic Career
In 1979, Shirakawa became an assistant professor at the University of Tsukuba in Japan. Three years later, he became a full professor. He also held leadership roles at the university, including Chief of the Science and Engineering Department from 1991 to 1993.
Important Research
Shirakawa's research on conductive polymers focused on four main areas:
- Making Thin Films of Polyacetylene: Polyacetylene was hard to work with because it didn't dissolve easily. Dr. Shirakawa found a way to make it into very thin films. Using these films, he was able to understand the structure of polyacetylene better.
- Creating Metallic Conductivity: Dr. Shirakawa discovered that adding a tiny bit of a chemical like bromine or iodine to polyacetylene thin films made them conduct electricity much better. They started acting like metals. He found that electrons could move between the added chemicals and the polyacetylene, which made it conductive.
- Using Liquid Crystals for Polymerization: Dr. Shirakawa developed a new way to make highly conductive polyacetylene thin films. He used liquid crystals during the process of making the plastic. He also managed to create thin films of helical polyacetylene, which are like tiny spirals, and he could control their spiral direction.
- Chirality: This is a property where a molecule is different from its mirror image, like your left and right hands.
- Creating Conjugated Liquid Crystalline Polymers: Dr. Shirakawa made special liquid crystalline polymers that could arrange themselves. He did this by adding liquid crystal parts to polymers like polyacetylene. He also found a way to align these polymers using electric or magnetic fields, which made them conduct electricity differently in different directions.
Awards and Recognition
Hideki Shirakawa has received many awards for his scientific work:
- 1983 – The Award of the Society of Polymer Science, Japan
- 2000 – SPSJ Award for Outstanding Achievement in Polymer Science and Technology
- 2000 – Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- 2000 – Order of Culture and chosen as a Person of Cultural Merit (important honors in Japan)
- 2000 – Professor Emeritus of the University of Tsukuba
- 2001 – Special Award of the Chemical Society of Japan
- 2001 – Member of the Japan Academy
- 2006 – Professor Emeritus of the Zhejiang University
The Nobel Prize
Shirakawa received the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He shared it with UPenn's physics professor Alan J. Heeger and chemistry professor Alan G. MacDiarmid. They won "for the discovery and development of conductive polymers." He was also the first Japanese Nobel laureate who did not graduate from one of Japan's top national universities.
Shirakawa has often said that he hopes the Nobel Prizes don't get too much attention from the media. He believes that many other important areas of science, outside of the Nobel Prize categories, should also become more widely known.
Public Views
On December 6, 2013, the Japanese government approved a new law about state secrets. Shirakawa and another Nobel laureate, physicist Toshihide Maskawa, spoke out against this law. They stated that the law:
"threatens the peaceful principles and basic human rights set by the constitution and should be rejected immediately... Even in difficult times, protecting the freedom of the press, of thought and expression and of academic research is essential."
See also
In Spanish: Hideki Shirakawa para niños
- List of Japanese Nobel laureates
