Interview
with Isamu Akasaki
Telephone interview with Isamu
Akasaki following the announcement of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics, 7
October 2014. The interviewer is Adam Smith, Chief Scientific Officer of Nobel
Media.
[Isamu
Akasaki] Hello, this is Akasaki speaking.
[Adam
Smith] Hello, this is Adam Smith calling. My congratulations on the award of
the Nobel Prize.
[IA]
Thank you very much.
[AS]
How did you hear the news? How did you learn?
[IA]
I was working at my office at the Meijo University. I was just arranging my
papers and some documents.
[AS]
Yes. And the telephone rang?
[IA]
I hear from the Nobel Foundation about 6pm that other surprise.
[AS]
What was your reaction, your first reaction?
[IA]
I was overwhelmed by so many interviewers and then messages of congratulations.
So many congratulation messages. I feel this shows the authority and the
greatness of the Nobel Prize.
[AS]
Indeed, I imagine everybody wants to talk to you now.
[IA]
Yes, yes.
[AS]
Tell me, one of your co-Laureates, Hiroshi Amano, he was your graduate student?
[IA]
Yes, I talked with him.
[AS]
What is he saying?
[IA]
Congratulations, he tells us. [Laughs]
[AS]
How very nice. You were the pioneer of the blue LED.
[IA]
Oh, I think so.
[AS]
Yes, and how did you have the courage to try to develop it when nobody else
could?
[IA]
Ah, in the late 1960s, red and the low green LEDs and the infrared
semiconductor lasers had already been
developed but there was no prospect of practical blue light emitters, even in
the ‘70s. So, very many researchers, including the front runners in gallium
nitride, abandoned the development of gallium nitride-based devices. I have
devoted myself to the study of crystal growth, aiming at the development of the
p-n junction of gallium nitride. That is the short story.
[AS]
It’s very very lovely to talk to you, thank you. We very much look forward to
meeting you when you come to Stockholm in December.
[IA]
December? Hi, hi.
[AS]
Yes, to receive the Prize.
[IA]
Yes, we can meet there.
[AS]
And then we will speak further.
[IA]
Sorry my poor English.
[AS]
Sorry for my poor Japanese.
[IA]
No, no. Japanese is a very strange foreign language for European people.
[AS]
Yes, but you speak English beautifully so we are fine. It’s a great pleasure to
speak to you. Once again congratulations and thank you.
[IA]
Bye Bye. |
|微社区|手机版|Archiver|英语口译 ( 渝ICP备10012431号-2 )
GMT+8, 2014-10-10 07:07 , Processed in 0.080045 second(s), 22 queries , Gzip On.