1 Million Swiss Francs Awarded to Nanoscience Research

[nanoorg]

23 November 2007
1 Million Swiss Francs Awarded to Nanoscience Research at Balzan Prize Ceremony 2007


Dr. Sumio Iijima has been awarded with the Balzan Prize 2007, in the field of Nanoscience, for his discovery of single walled carbon nanotubes and the study of their properties. The award ceremony took place in Berne, Switzerland.

The carbon nanotube, discovered in 1991 by Dr. Iijima at NECs Fundamental Research Laboratories (now the Nano Electronics Research Laboratories), is a central material of nanotechnology. A broad range of fields, including electronics, energy and biotechnology, are expected to benefit from application of the carbon nanotube in the future.

Dr. Iijima is a Senior Research Fellow at NEC Corporation, Director of the Research Center for Advanced Carbon Materials at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology of Tsukuba (AIST), and Professor at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Meijo University, Nagoya.

The International Balzan Prize Foundation, founded in 1957, promotes culture, science, and the most meritorious initiatives in the cause of humanity, peace and brotherhood among peoples, regardless of nationality, race or creed throughout the world. It achieves its aim through the annual award of four prizes: literature, the moral sciences and the arts; medicine and the physical, mathematical and natural sciences; each for the current value of 1 million Swiss francs. Each prize winner must allocate half of the prize for research work, preferably involving young researchers.