2009 Masao Horiba Award Winners Announced. Awards Ceremony to be Held on 19 October.

|   Press Release

The Masao Horiba Awards was established in 2003 to promote research activities in the field of analysis and measurement technology by researchers working at universities or public research institutes in Japan and overseas. HORIBA, Ltd. is pleased to announce the winners of the 2009 Masao Horiba Awards.

This year, we received 19 applications, including eight from outside Japan, which ranged from fundamental technology to applications. The fundamental technology research included total reflection X-ray fluorescence, mass spectrometry and glow discharge TOF-MS. The application research covered such areas as wide gap semiconductors, GaN and gas reaction processes on silicon surfaces. All the applied research deeply impressed us with the sincere efforts and high academic expertise that were shown in the analysis of the surface of materials used in the semiconductor and related industries.

Award Winners and Their Research Topics

Dr. Jorge Pisonero, Researcher (Assistant Professor), 
University of Oviedo (Spain)
Development and Evaluation of an Innovative “Soft Ionization Technique” based on Atmospheric Pressure Glow Discharges Time-of-flight Mass Spectrometry (AP-GD-TOFMS) for the Determination of Inorganic/organic Contaminants on Semiconductor Surfaces

Dr. Kenji Sakurai, Group Leader, 
National Institute for Materials Science (Japan)
A Challenge in Ultra-trace Analysis by X-ray Fluorescence -Instrumentation of Novel Efficient Wavelength-dispersive X-ray Spectrometer and the Application to TXRF Experiments with Brilliant Synchrotrons

Dr. Shinya Ohno, Research Associate, 
Yokohama National University (Japan)
Study of O2, NO and CO Reaction Processes on Silicon Surfaces by Means of Surface Differential Reflectance and Reflectance Difference Spectroscopy
  
In addition, the Committee has decided to confer an honorable mention to 
Mr. Shinsuke Kunimura, P.h.D candidate, 
Kyoto University (Japan)
The Development of a Portable Total Reflection X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometer with Picogram Sensitivity

About the Masao Horiba Awards

The Masao Horiba Awards, named after the founder of HORIBA Ltd., was established in May 2003 with the aim of encouraging development of measurement technology. This award is targeted at researchers outside the Company. Each year, a selection theme is chosen from core measurement technologies. The Masao Horiba Awards should not be conceived merely as a research grant; but are specially designed to support the commercialization of prizewinning research. In the past five years, applications were invited in the domains of basic technologies that have served as driving forces for development of the HORIBA Group.

Award recipients were chosen by the Awards Committee, according to criteria such as research achievement and the potential to make significant future contributions. This year, four winners were selected from among the many applications because of their commitment to research that will contribute to the creation of innovative and unique analysis/measurement technology andtheir potential for playing a leading role in the future development of analysis/measurement technology.