午夜剧场

"Interdisciplinary fusion creates innovation." Recently, I have had many opportunities to hear words to this effect. This is likely evidence that many researchers recognize the importance of interdisciplinary fusion.

I personally felt the importance of interdisciplinary fusion more than 10 years ago when I was engaged in research as a PRESTO researcher. PRESTO is one of the funding programs of the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and is often called a gateway to success for young researchers. Having conducted research using light, such as optical properties and quantum electronics, since I was a student, I applied for the PRESTO area "Creation, Manipulation, and Development of Light" and was fortunately selected despite a high competition rate of over 10 times. PRESTO researchers and advisors dealing with optical science participated in the same PRESTO area, but the field of optical research is very broad, and I was able to get to know many researchers from different fields with whom I had never interacted before. At the camp-style area meetings held once every six months, I talked seriously late into the night with researchers from different fields I met through PRESTO about "how to conduct interesting research," and several groundbreaking collaborations were born from those discussions. This is truly the fruit of "interdisciplinary fusion." Through this experience, I realized the importance of interdisciplinary fusion, and after completing my PRESTO research, I launched a new cross-disciplinary exploratory research group for optical science with volunteer researchers. This research group continues to this day and plays a role in interdisciplinary fusion. I am also currently planning a new collaboration with a researcher from the School of Medicine whom I met through this research group.

The Quantum Electronics Research Group of the Japan Society of Applied Physics, which I have participated in since I was a student, also lists interdisciplinary fusion as its mission. The Quantum Electronics Research Group is a traditional research group with a history of several decades. At the time of its establishment, researchers from the optical and semiconductor fields, as well as researchers from universities, Research Centers and Institutes, and companies, engaged in discussions and contributed significantly to the development of semiconductor lasers. Since then, the purpose of the research group has been to seek further development through interaction between researchers with different research backgrounds through interaction with light. Having been appointed as the vice-chair of the Quantum Electronics Research Group this spring, I would like to firmly carry on the traditions of the research group and promote interdisciplinary fusion. I believe that interdisciplinary fusion is exactly what creates innovation.