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The seeds of new science and technology originating in the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute's laboratories and research units, and cultivated through basic research projects, are further developed into strategic Department projects targeted at pioneering new, next-generation research fields. The Departments are strategically managed to promote integrated and concentrated research that can be spun off within a 10-year period as a new RIKEN strategic research center or institute or national center of excellence.
Departments list
Chemical Biology Department
- Director
- Hiroyuki Osada
We aim to integrate approaches from such disparate fields as organic chemistry, molecular biology, glycobiology and structural biology into our chemical biology research and reveal some of the mysteries of biological systems. To this end we are engaged in constructing a chemical library of microbial metabolites, and high-throughput screening using enzymes, fission yeasts and mammalian cells.
Emergent Materials Department
- Director
- Yoshinori Tokura
Our research objective is to better elucidate the principles involved in order to create innovative functions that may lead to new ways of looking at the fields of molecular devices and quantum computers. We will study combinations of three-functional components, electrons, atoms and molecules, aiming to create, align, observe and measure material functions at the nanometer scale.
Green-forefront Materials Department
- Director
- Kohei Tamao
Our goal is, based on construction of new scientific principles, to contribute to the solution of problems on a global scale by developing innovative functional materials such as high-efficiency thermoelectric conversion materials and high-temperature superconductors based on the electric changes within materials and ecologically-compatible soft materials containing greater than 99% water, and high-efficiency catalytic reactions to realize 100% atom efficiency processes as a resource conservation strategy.
Extreme Photonics Department
- Director
- Katsumi Midorikawa
We pursue the potential of novel light sources now under development at RIKEN, such as intense soft-X-ray attosecond pulses, near-field photons and terahertz light waves. Those extreme light infrastructures play key roles in creating the new optical science fields of atto-photonics, nano-photonics and tera-photonics, which make up extreme photonics.