Leo Esaki

Leo Esaki
Leo Esaki
江崎玲於奈
	Esaki in 1959
Born	March 12, 1925; Takaida-mura, Nakakawachi-gun, Osaka Prefecture, Imperial Japan
Alma mater	Tokyo Imperial University ; (BSc, 1947; PhD, 1959)
Known for	Discovering quantum tunnelling in semiconductors (1957); Inventing the tunnel diode (1957); Work on superlattices (1970);
Title	IBM Fellow (1967–1992)
Awards	Asahi Prize (1959); Nishina Memorial Prize (1959); Stuart Ballantine Medal (1961); Japan Academy Prize (1965); Nobel Prize in Physics (1973); International Prize for New Materials (1985); Harold Pender Award (1989); IEEE Medal of Honor (1991); Japan Prize (1998);
Honors	Order of Culture (1974); Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun (1998);
	Scientific career
Fields	Solid-state physics
Institutions	Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo ; (1947–1960); Thomas J. Watson Research Center (1960–1992);

Leo Esaki (/ɪˈsɑːki/ ih-SAH-kee; Japanese: 江崎玲於奈, romanized: Ezaki Reona; born March 12, 1925) is a Japanese solid-state physicist who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physics with Ivar Giaever and Brian Josephson for his work on quantum tunnelling in semiconductors, which led to his invention of the tunnel diode that exploits this phenomenon. His research was done when he was with Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo (now Sony). He has also contributed in being a pioneer of the semiconductor superlattices.