Measurement and Analysis Technologies for Future Science and Social InnovationVolume 65 Number 7 August 2016
Measurement and analysis technologies contribute to science and technology by enabling new discoveries, and they also deliver numerous benefits in our daily lives and in industry. This issue of Hitachi Review presents the latest trends and solutions in measurement and analysis technologies from various fields, including the environment and renewable energy, new materials, life science, and electronics.
Part of the foundations of science and industry, measurement and analysis technologies are used in a wide variety of fields, including the development of new materials, biology, electronics, the environment, and renewable energy. Hitachi has contributed to the development of industry and society through measurement and analysis technology and its applications, having had a long involvement in instrumentation, electron microscopes, spectrophotometers, and other such devices.
Measurement and analysis technologies contribute to science and technology by enabling new discoveries such as the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) double helix and the detection of neutrinos. They also deliver numerous benefits in our daily lives, such as conducting clinical analyses at a health check and testing the composition of food. In industry, they are used in research and development and in process and quality control.
The atomic-resolution holography electron microscope project, launched in March 2010 by the late Akira Tonomura under the Funding Program for World-Leading Innovative R&D on Science and Technology (FIRST Program), was completed last year. Overcoming numerous difficulties, not least of which was the Great East Japan Earthquake, Dr. Tonomura was, in accordance with his own wishes, succeeded within Hitachi by Nobuyuki Osakabe and Hiroyuki Shinada, and the project culminated in a 1.2-MV ultra-high-voltage electron microscope that combines atomic resolution with the ability to image electromagnetic fields.
Measurement and analysis, meaning the ability to observe, measure, and analyze, are essential to the progress of science and society. Many new scientific discoveries were brought about by advances in measurement and analysis technologies, and they are collectively described as the “Mother of Science.”
