Quick Facts
Biography
Kenji Ohmori (大森 賢治, Ōmori Kenji, born on November 10, 1962 in Kumamoto City) is a Japanese physicist and chemist. National Institutes of Natural Sciences, Japan (NIMS), Institute for Molecular Science (IMS)
Education and career
- 1987 Graduated from Faculty of Engineering, The University of Tokyo
- 1992 Ph. D, The University of Tokyo
- 1992 Research Associate, Tohoku University
- 2001 Associate Professor, Tohoku University
- 2003 Full Professor, IMS
- 2007-2010 Director, Laser Research Center for Molecular Science, IMS
- 2010–present Chairman, Department of Photo-Molecular Science, IMS
- 2004-2005 Visiting Professor, Tohoku University
- 2007-2008 Visiting Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology
- 2009-2011 Visiting Professor, The University of Tokyo
- 2012–present Visiting Professor, University of Heidelberg
Research
Kenji Ohmori has succeeded in designing and visualizing spatiotemporal images given by the interference of matter waves of atoms in a molecule with picometer and femtosecond resolution [1,2]. The precision of this processing is the highest to date, higher than that of the current nanotechnology by three orders of magnitudes. This ultrahigh-precision processing has been implemented with the temporal oscillations of laser electric fields engineered with attosecond precision and imprinted on the matter waves of atoms and electrons in a molecule. He has utilized this technique to develop a molecular computer in which a single 0.3-nanometer-size molecule can calculate 1000 times faster than the current fastest supercomputer [3,4].
Honors and awards
- 1998 Award by Research Foundation for Opto-Science and Technology
- 2007 JSPS Prize
- 2007 Japan Academy Medal
- 2009 Fellow of the American Physical Society
- 2012 Humboldt Prize