The FIRST Program promotes state-of-the-art research projects of 3 to 5 years in diverse fields and at various stages of development, from basic research to R&D for practical application. The objective of the program is to reinforce Japan's international competitiveness over the intermediate and long term in areas of industry and national security, and to return the achievements of research and development to the Japanese public and society. The FIRST Program is dedicated to giving priority to individual researchers.
See the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) website for more information: http://www.jsps.go.jp/english/e-first/index.html
At the Advanced Science Institute, research projects funded by the FIRST Program are set up as independent research groups for swift and strategic implementation.
Our research group aims at obtaining unprecedented and innovative electronic properties/functions, such as highly efficient energy conversion and dissipationless control of quantum state (information), by fully exploiting the complex interplay among multiple degrees of freedom of strongly correlated electrons, as well as the non-local and sensitive responses of relativistic electrons in a well-designed space-time structure.