Researchers from Tokyo University of Science and Yokohama National University built a photocurable resin that hardens with light and melts back to liquid with heat. Using anthracene photodimerization, it recycles 10-plus times with no initiators or additives.
A team in Japan re-engineered zinc oxide, the harmless powder in sunscreen, into a material that emits near-infrared light from a gentle fingertip press. No power, no rare earths. Here's why it matters for medicine, bridges, and the rare-earth standoff.
Researchers at Japan's Shinshu University and JST have built a hybrid nanosheet that folds all three of nature's color mechanisms — absorption, reflection and emission — into one self-assembling photonic crystal, with color switchable by magnet or light. It is also the story of a scientist chasing 'living materials' at a textile faculty whose roots reach back to a 1910 silkworm school.
A team led by the Nagoya Institute of Technology has found that water vapor can accelerate bond exchange in vitrimers, a third class of plastic that could finally make 'unrecyclable' thermosets repairable and reusable.
Waseda University and Fujitsu used quantum circuit learning (QCL) to predict the hardness of high-entropy alloys from only about 100 data points. We explain how a quantum approach tackles the small-data extrapolation problem that defeats conventional machine learning, where it sits against IBM and Google quantum efforts, and what it could mean for industrial materials discovery.
Seven months after metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, where does the technology actually stand? A status check on Atoco's air-to-water devices, scaled-up carbon capture by Svante and Kobe Steel, China's lead in MOF research output, and why an Atomis executive says a Nobel does not lower the hurdles.
An Osaka University team has shrunk a key step in magnetic tunnel junction fabrication from hours to about 1.7 seconds using flash-lamp annealing—up to thousands of times faster than conventional methods, with implications for MRAM mass production and flexible sensors.
Kawasaki Heavy Industries has begun pitching a technology that produces naphtha—the building block of plastics—from hydrogen instead of crude oil. Built on its commercial gas-to-gasoline plant in Turkmenistan, the proposal lands in the middle of a Japanese petrochemical crisis triggered by the Strait of Hormuz disruption.
A black, sponge-like slab that floats with just lamp light has racked up 1.8 million views in a week. Developed at Nagoya University by Tomonaga Ueno, the carbon-nanotube aerogel is lighter than air and could quietly reshape EVs, eVTOL aircraft, drones and spacecraft. Here's how it actually works—and why the startup Sora Material thinks it's an industrial workhorse, not just a viral trick.
Tohoku University researchers have proven for the first time that microscopic surface roughness can reduce air drag by up to 43.6%, overturning an 80-year-old fluid mechanics consensus dating back to the 1940s. Here is what this discovery could enable for aircraft, cars, ships, bullet trains, and drones — and how it differs from riblets and golf ball dimples.
Between March and May 2026, Japan launched a wave of perovskite solar cell demonstrations across the country—world efficiency records, rice paddies, mountain tea fields, skyscraper windows, highway parking areas, and Toyota's Woven City. We unpack for international readers why everything is happening at once.
Japan's Resonac (formerly Showa Denko) will switch its Kawasaki ammonia plant to 100% waste-plastic-derived hydrogen by April 2030, ending its reliance on natural gas reforming. The world's only long-running commercial gasification chemical recycling plant processes 70,000 tons of plastic waste annually to produce 120,000 tons of ammonia, with 80%+ CO2 reduction. Now backed by Japan's first CCfD-style price-gap subsidy. A circular alternative to urban mining.
Japan's vacuum equipment leader ULVAC is reshoring production of vacuum melting furnaces for rare earth magnets, with orders from US and European manufacturers projected to roughly triple. With over 70% global share in continuous vacuum furnaces, Japan's equipment dominance becomes a geopolitical asset.
Researchers at the University of Tsukuba have discovered that pill bugs (Armadillidium vulgare) don't just incorporate the calcium carbonate they eat — they rebuild it from scratch inside their bodies, always producing calcite even when fed aragonite. The unexpected polymorph control reveals a deeper biomineralization mystery and may inspire next-generation biomimetic materials.
Kao, famous for Biore and Attack, has launched its first overseas semiconductor cleaning center in Taiwan. Ajinomoto, the MSG maker, is pouring over 25 billion yen into ABF insulation films that hold nearly 100% global share. We explain how Japanese consumer goods companies—alongside Shin-Etsu, SUMCO, JSR, and TOK—became indispensable to the AI chip supply chain, and how they compete with US, European, Korean, and Taiwanese rivals.
Toshiba Energy Systems, Airbus, and Toyota are racing to commercialize superconducting motors that promise 10x the power density of conventional motors. Dubbed the 'ultimate motor,' the technology enables hydrogen aircraft and hydrogen-engine cars while leveraging Japan's decades of niche superconductor expertise. As eVTOL startups falter, why is Japan's aviation motor technology suddenly central to the global decarbonization race?
Susumu Kitagawa of Kyoto University, joint winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, has long advocated turning air itself into a resource through metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). His porous crystals can sort and capture CO2, water vapor and other molecules, putting Japan in direct conversation with players like Switzerland's Climeworks in the rapidly evolving direct-air-capture industry. Here is how a basic-science breakthrough from Kyoto could rewrite the economics of decarbonization.
6G's high-frequency waves can't penetrate walls, so NTT invented a 3.5-micrometer liquid-crystal sheet you stick on windows that electrically bends radio waves to kill indoor dead zones. At one-tenth the thickness of conventional designs, it can be mass-produced on existing LCD factory lines. Japan just pulled ahead in the global RIS race where Nokia and Samsung are also sprinting.
How does Fujitsu's dual-band T2SL infrared sensor stack up against existing products? We break performance down into three axes, resolution, sensitivity, and wavelength, and go head-to-head with FLIR, Raytheon, L3Harris, Northrop Grumman, and Sweden's IRnova. Plus the commercial rollout roadmap from FY2026.
Tokyo-based Orbray has produced the world's largest 30mm square (111) freestanding diamond single-crystal substrate, leaping from the previous few-millimeter limit. The twin-suppression breakthrough, published in Applied Physics Express, unlocks NV-center quantum sensors and next-generation power semiconductors.