Hideki Shirakawa was born in Tokyo, Japan, in the family of a military doctor. He lived in Manchukuo and Taiwan during childhood. Around third grade, he moved to Takayama, Gifu, which is the hometown of his mother. Shirakawa graduated from Tokyo Institute of Technology with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering in 1961, he also received doctorate from Tokyo Tech in 1966. Afterward, he obtained the post of assistant in Chemical Resources Laboratory at Tokyo Tech.
Career
While employed as an assistant at Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan, Shirakawa developed polyacetylene, which has a metallic appearance. This result interested Alan MacDiarmid when MacDiarmid visited Tokyo Tech in 1975. In 1976, he was invited to work in the laboratory of Alan MacDiarmid as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. The two developed the electrical conductivity of polyacetylene along with American physicist Alan Heeger. In 1977 they discovered that doping with iodine vapor could enhance the conductivity of polyacetylene. The three scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2000 in recognition of the discovery. With regard to the mechanism of electric conduction, it is strongly believed that nonlinear excitations in the form of solitons play a role. In 1979, Shirakawa became an assistant professor in the University of Tsukuba, three years later, he advanced to a full professor. In 1991 he was appointed as Tsukuba's Chief of Science and Engineering Department of Graduate School, and as Tsukuba's Chief of Category #3 group.
The Nobel Prize
Shirakawa awarded the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with UPenn's physics professor Alan J. Heeger and chemistry professor Alan G. MacDiarmid, "for the discovery and development of conductive polymers". He also became the first non-National Seven Universities graduate of Japanese Nobel laureates, and second Japanese chemistry Nobel laureates. Over the years, Shirakawa has been expressed that he doesn't want the Nobel Prizes to receive too much special treatment from mass media. He hopes that many vital areas in fields outside the Nobel Prize categories will also become more widely known.
"threatens the pacifist principles and fundamental human rights established by the constitution and should be rejected immediately......Even in difficult times, protecting the freedom of the press, of thought and expression and of academic research is indispensable."
