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Dr. Leo Esaki joined IBM Research in 1960 and became an IBM Fellow in 1967. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973 in recognition of his pioneering work on tunneling in solids and discovery of the tunnel diode.
Esaki's other awards and honors include: the Nishina Memorial Award, the Asahi Press Award, an achievement award from the Tokyo chapter of the U.S. Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association, the Toyo Rayon Foundation Award for the Promotion of Science and Technology, the Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Prize, the Stuart Ballantine Medal and the Japan Academy Award. He holds honorary degrees from Doshisha School, Japan; the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Spain; the University of La Plata, Argentina; the University of Montpellier, France; and Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan.
From 1971 to 1975, he served as councillor-at-large to the American Physical Society and as a director of the American Vaccum Society from 1973 to 1975. He was a director of IBM Japan, Ltd., on the governing board of the IBM Tokyo Research Lab, a director of the Yamada Science Foundation, as well as the Science and Technology Foundation of Japan. He has served on numerous international scientific advisory boards and committees, and was an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the Industrial Science Institute at the University of Tokyo. He also served as the guest editorial writer for the Yomiuri Press.
He was chosen for the Order of Culture by the Japanese Government and elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1974. He was elected a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences in 1976 and of the National Academy of Engineering in 1977. In 1978, he was honored as a corresponding member of the Academia Nacional De Ingenieria of Mexico. He received the US-Asia Institute 1983 Achievement Award and the IEEE Centennial Medal in 1984. The American Physical Society awarded him the International Prize for New Materials in 1985 for his pioneering work in artificial semiconductor superlattices. Esaki was chosen as a recipient of the Distinguished Foreign Born Individual Award by the International Center in 1986, followed by the IBM Outstanding Innovation Award in 1987, also for his work on semiconductor superlattices. In 1988, he received the Seal of the University of Bologna. He was elected a member of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in 1989 and a foreign member of the American Philosophical Society in 1991.
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Prior to joining IBM, Esaki worked at the Sony Corporation where his research on heavily-doped Ge and Si resulted in the discovery of the tunnel diode. His major field was semiconductor physics. His other interests included man-made semiconductor superlattices and potential wells, exploring a new quantum regime.
He received his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from the University of Tokyo in 1947 and 1959, respectively.
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