In November, the Inamori Foundation in Kyoto, Japan, will present to five winners the annual Kyoto Prizes, which are given in the categories of advanced technology, basic sciences, and arts and philosophy. Of the winners, three work in physics.
The Kyoto Prize in the advanced technology category will go jointly to Zhores Alferov, Izuo Hayashi, and Morton B. Panish for “success in continuous operation of semiconductor lasers at room temperature—a pioneering step in optoelectronics.” Alferov is the director of the Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia. Hayashi retired in 1994 as director of the Optoelectronics Technology Research Laboratory in Tsukuba, Japan, although he continued as an adviser to the lab until 1996. He remains active in the field, giving invited lectures and talks. Panish retired in 1992 as a distinguished member of the technical staff with AT&T Bell Labs (now Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies) in Murray Hill, New Jersey. He continues to pursue his interests in photography and in things scientific such as paleontology and astronomy.
The prize presentation ceremony will be held at the Kyoto International Conference Hall. There, these three winners will each receive a diploma and a medal, and they will share the prize money of 50 million yen (about $409 000).
