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Sumio Iijima is a Japanese physicist, often cited as the inventor of carbon nanotubes. Although carbon nanotubes had been observed prior to his "invention", Iijima's 1991 paper generated unprecedented interest in the carbon nanostructures and has since fueled intense research in the area of nanotechnology. For this and other work Sumio Iijima was awarded, together with Louis Brus, the inaugural Kavli Prize for nanoscience in 2008.
Born in Saitama Prefecture in 1939, Iijima graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering degree in 1963 from the University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo. He received a Master's degree in 1965 and completed his Ph.D. in solid-state physics in 1968, both at Tohoku University in Sendai.
Between 1970 and 1982 he performed research with crystalline materials and high-resolution electron microscopy at Arizona State University. He visited the University of Cambridge during 1979 to perform studies on carbon materials.
He worked for the Research Development Corporation of Japan from 1982 to 1987, studying ultra-fine particles, after which he joined NEC Corporation where he is still employed. He discovered carbon nanotubes in 1991 while working with NEC. He is also a professor at Meijo University since 1999. Furthermore, he is the director of the Research Center for Advanced Carbon Materials, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Distinguished Invited University Professor of Nagoya University and the dean of Sungkyunkwan Advanced Institute of Nanotechnology.
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