Curriculum Vitae
Dr. Kobayashi is still active in his research work and he is preparing some new publications.
Occupation
Professor Emeritus of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology(TU of A&T)
Professor Emeritus and Founding Director of Liquid Crystal Institute of Tokyo University of Science, Yamaguchi(TUS-Yamaguchi)
Serving as an adviser of above mentioned universities
Membership Grade
SID Fellow , IEICE, Japan Fellow
ILCS, Honored Member
JLCS, Honored Member
Education History
Ph.D Electronic Engineering, The University of Tokyo, March 1964
MS Applied Physics, the University of Tokyo, March 1961
BA Physics, Tokyo University of Science, 1955
Professional History
1955-1959 Assistant Professor, Tokyo University of Science
1964-1973 Member of Staff Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (Wako city, Saitama, Japan)
1973-1978 Assoc. Professor, TU of A&T
1978-1996 Professor, TU of A&T
1996 -Present Professor Emeritus, TU of A&T
1996-2014 Professor, Tokyo University of Science, Yamaguchi (TUS-Yamaguchi)
1997-2014 Founding Director of Liquid Crystal Institute at TUS-Yamaguchi
2014-Present Professor Emeritus and Advisor at TUS –Yamaguchi
Professional Awards and other Professional Society Affiliations and Grade of Membership
１. SID Fellow Award 1987.
２. SID President Citation Award 1992 (For the service as the first Regional Vice President, Asia).
３. SID Jan Rajchman Prize 1995 (For defect free and practical high grade LCDs) The Tokyo
４. The Tokyo Metropolitan Governor Prize 1996 (For R and D on LCDs).
５. SID Lewis and Beatrice Winner Award 1996 (For the moderator of SID Pre-symposium Briefing for Overseas Speakers and making SID truly international).
６. The Japanese Ministry of Education and Science Award 2011 (For education, research and development on LCDs)
７. Honored Member, International Liquid Crystal Society 2012 (For defect free large area LCDs)
８. Honored Member Japanese Society of Liquid Crystal, 2011 (For the realization of defect free high grade large area LCDs)
Dr. Kobayashi has contributed strongly to the Society for Information Display and its association functions.
He served as the first Regional Vice-president, Asia and made SID truly international.
He has served as a moderator and instructor for the SID Pre-symposium briefing for Overseas Speakers with Mr. Lewis Winner, Dr. Terry Nelson,Mr. William Bohanon and Professor Heiju Uchiike,and recently with Dr. Kalil Klantar since 1974 for 40 years.
The attendee, who came from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Turkey and Germany of this service, accounts totally about 1300 speakers. This service may be contributed to make presentations given at SID Symposium will be current and global English way. This was touched upon by the President of SID Tony Lowe, when he gave The Lewis and Beatrice Winner Prize to Dr. Kobayashi in 1996.
Dr. Kobayashi served as the Founding Chair of SID Display of the Year Award.
Dr. Kobayashi made an effort to open SID Korea Chapter, Taipei Chapter, and Beijing Chapter in his possible way.
Dr. Kobayashi served as the Chair for the first IWD in Hiroshima, Japan in 1994.
Description of most significant achievements which qualifies the nomination for the award
１． Dr. Kobayashi wrote a book titled “Liquid Crystals-Their properties and applications” (In Japanese) Nikkan Kougyo Shimbun (1970) (Reference 1).
This book was printed 300,000 copies and read by readers of not only in Japan nut also in Asian countries such as those in Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, China and other countries, when liquid crystal and LCDs were not familiar among people.
He described the possibility of hand held calculators with LCD and actually Sharp sold LCD calculators in 1973; some persons in Sharp were inspired by this book.
And this book describes properties of liquid crystal, how to make LCD devices, and infrared application of Cholesteric LC. By reading this book some of scientists and engineers in universities and companies inaugurated research on liquid crystals and LCDs.
２．Defect free and multicolor TN-LCDs
In 1971, M. Schadt and W. Helfrich published a paper on NT –LCD. Many people were interested in this LCD for low power consumption better than DSM-mode LCD (M. Schadt and W. Helfrich, APL,18, 127-128(1971) (Reference 2).Many people interested in knowing how to make this device in an actual way.
S. Kobayashi and F. Takeuchi reported how to make defect free and multicolor TN –LCD device at SID 1973 and published a paper:
S. Kobayashi and F. Takeuchi“Multi-color field effect liquid crystal display devices” Proc. SID 14/4, (1973) (Reference 3)
Actually, this prototype alpha numeric and color TN-LCD was demonstrated in a laboratory in RIKEN since October 10th, 1972 for one year; and many visitors from all over the prefectures of Japan came to RIKEN to see this demonstration.
This event continued over six month and accounts the number of visitors will be 200 people.
This work done with Mr. Fumio Takeuchi and he became the first engineer on LCD at Toshiba, and RIKEN accepted formal research visiting fellows from several electrical companies to learn how to make TN-LCD.
At that time Dr. Kobayashi developed and invented a rubbing machine for a dry process by adopting a drum wrapped with a fabric; this approach is still currently utilized in production facilities and research laboratory.
At that time, TU of A &T in Kobayashi lab accepted a research fellow from NIKON to install LCDs on camera (this is currently common). For this project Mr. Akira Miyaji from NIKON, stayed in Kobayashi lab to develop defect free TN-LCD and Dr. Kobayashi’s group published a paper:
３．Miyaji. M.Yamaguchi, A.Toda,H.Mada,S.Kobayashi,”Contro and elimination of disclinations in twisted nematic liquid crystal display” IEEE, Trans. Electro. Dev. ED-24/7, 811-815(1977) (Reference4)
４．Defect free STN-LCD
In 1984, T. Scheffer and J. Nehring published a paper on STN-LCD , JAP,45, 1021-1026(1984 )(Reference 5).
STN LCDs are featured by a higher multiplexability over than that of TN-LCD. For this reason many Japanese companies were interested in fabricating this device for making dot matrix LCDs with the higher information content, but no bodies knew how to make a large area defect free STN-LCD except for the existing vacuum deposition technique that is not suitable for large area.
At that time, Dr.Hiroyoshi Fukuro visited Kobayashi lab at TUAT and stayed there as a research fellow. The purpose was to develop a practically use full polyimide for the surface alignment films that are capable of generating a high pre-tilt angles of 7-10 degrees for eliminating the appearance of stripe domains in STN-LCD.
Dr.Kobayashi made a suggestion about the mechanism of the generation of appropriate pre-tilt angles; the idea was that make asymmetric triangles on the substrates in an LCD cell and this can be done by putting alkyl branches on PI surfaces and perform a mechanical rubbing .
This idea was son adopted by Dr. Fukuro and engineers of Nissan Chem. synthesized alkyl moieties contained PI and alkyl branch attached PI .Soon later students of Kobayashi lab and Dr. Fukuro succeeded in demonstrating defect free STN-LCD. They published a paper and made a report at Japan Display in 1986:
H. Fukuro and S. Kobayashi, “Newly Synthesized Polyimide for Aligning Nematic Liquid Crystals Accompanying High Pre-tilt Angles” MCLC 163, 157-162 (1983) (Reference 6),
K. Yoshida, H. Fukuro, S. Kobayashi,” Generation of a High Pre-tilt Angle by Rubbing Technique: Application to Super Twist Nematic Liquid Crystal” Proc.JapaDisplay’86(Oct. Kyoto) 396-399(1986)(Reference 7)
５．Defect free FLCD and Polymer Stabilized V-FLCD
In 1980, N. A. Clark and S. T. Lagerwall published a paper on Surface Stabilized FLCD: APL 36, 899-902(1980)(Reference 8). This pare was attracted a keen interest among scientists and engineers for the fast response with sub-ms.
But soon later it emerged severe problems in the appearance of so called zig-zag defects and unable to make a gray-scale operation.
No bodies were able to solve these problems; but in 1997 group of professor Phil Bos founded out a solution: that is to use a smooth surface for aligning smooth surfaces, what they did was to use polyvinyl films:P. Watson,P.J.Bos ,J.Pirs,PR56/4,R3769-3770(1997).(Reference9).
Soon later Dr. Kobayashi’s group reported a defect free and V shaped switching FLCD:
S. Kataoka, Y. Taguchi, Y. Iimura, H. Hasebe, H.T akatsu,“Liquid Crystal polymer Stabilized FLCDs with Conventional
Polyimide Films and with Photo Alignment Films of Poly Cinnamate” MCLC 229, 233-243(1997) (Reference10); this work was a beginning of work with DIC scientists.
H.Furue, Y.Iimura, Y.Yamamoto, H.Endoh, S.Kobayashi“Fabrication of zig-zag Defect Free Bi-stable SSFLCD by rubbing method: a material Study and physical modelling ” MCLC 328,193-200(1999).(Reference11).
This work was done again with Nisan Chemical Ind. and a beginning of the practical PI with smooth surface and this type of PIs have been widely utilized not only for FLCDs but also current IPS-LCDs.
Dr. Kobayashi’s group also participated in developing use full PIs for active matrix LCDs by having visiting fellow from JSR and together with a PhD student:
M. Nishikawa, K. Sano, T. Miyamoto, Y. Yokoyama. N.Besso,D.-S. Seo, Y. Iimura, S. Kobayashi,” Pre-tilt Angle of Nematic Liquid Crystals on Organic Solvent Polyimide” MCLC 259, 47-53(1995).(Reference 12)
As a further research , Dr. Kobayashi’s research group conducted a R&D on a TFT driven field sequential color(FSC)-LCDs using PSV-FLCD and demonstrated a prototype one with the specification of 4 inch on the diagonal and SVGA(680x600pixels):
T. Fujisawa, I. Nishiyama, K. Hatsusaka, S. Kobayashi ”Field sequential full color LCDs using polymer stabilized V-shaped ferro-electric liquid crystals” Ferroelctrics 364 , 78-85(2008)(Reference 13).
This work was done with engineers at DIC and university students.
This work was done again with Nisan Chem,Ind. and a beginning of the practical PI with smooth surface and this type of PIs have been widely utilized not only for FLCDs but also current IPS-LCDs.
５．Defect free photo-alignment of liquid crystals
Currently, photo-alignment technology is inevitable for fabricating 4kx2k LCD-TVs .Photo-alignment of liquid crystal was inaugurated by Dr.Ichimura7group and Dr. M. Schadt and other groups and Professors Chigrinov and Kwok wrote a excellent book on phto-alignment:
K.Ichimura,Y.Suzuki,T.Seki,A.Hosoki,K.Aoki,Langmuir,4, 1214-1216(1998).(Reference14),M.Schadt and H.Seiberle, J.of SID, 367-370(1997),(Reference15).
V. G. Chigrinov, V. M. Kozenkov, H. S. Kwok” Photo-alignment of Liquid Crystalline Materials: Physics and Applications Wiley,(2008) (Reference16).
Dr. Kobayashi made a report on how one is able to fabricate a defect free photo-aligned LCD with a micro-photograph of the texture of defect free; this work as done together with Stanley Electric team and student:
T.Hashimoto,T.Suguyama,K.Kato,T.Saito,N.Suzuki,Y.Iimura,S.Kobayashi,”TN-LCD with Quartered Sob-pixels using polarized UV-Light Irradiated polymer orientation films”1996,SID Digest of Technical Papers,XXVI,877-880(1905).(Reference17).
This paper is some time quoted by a speaker in a meeting as a milestone paper, since oblique irradiation of UV light on polymer films brings a generation of necessary pre-tilt angle and applied to fabricate four domain TN-LCD called super multi-domain.
６．Nanoparticle doped LCDs exhibit an enhanced electro-optical performances: Application to FSC-NTN-LCD
Nanoparticles are historical common materials such as stained glass (glass/Ag nanoparticles), silicone rubber (Polymer/Aerosil silica), and so forth. However, nanoparticles /liquid crystal systems are current hot topics in an academic meeting,such as International Liquid Crystal Conference 2014, Dublin, Ireland, where 60 papers on nanoparticles/LCs from all over the world were presented.
Dr. Kobayashi’s group reported Carbon-60 doped LCD in 2001:
M. Suzuki, H.Furue, S.Kobayashi ”Polarizerless Nanomaterial Doped Guest-Host LCD Exhibiting High Luminance and Good Legibility” MCLC368, 191-196(2001)(reference18).
And Dr. Kobayashi’s group presented a paper nanoparticles doped LCDs at several SID Symposium and a review paper was published in SID Information Display:
S.Kobayashi,N.Toshima “Nanoparticles and LCDs: Its a surprising world” SID Information Display 29/9, 26-32(2009).(Reference19)
This paper describes “Amplification of capacitance due to a negative dielectric constant in diffusion clouded Ag nanoparticles/NLC at a special low frequency.
Dr.Kobayashi particiared in a Japanese national project: Ministry of Education and Science “NanoLCs/Ymamaguchi Green Materials Cluster” for seven years until 2014.And his team conducted research on FSC-NTN-LCD doped with the nanoparticles of pCyD-ZrO2 (Synthesized by Shiraishi lab,TUS-Y) and Aerosil silica 812 and 300(EVONIK) and the team got several good data, such as reduction of response time for the switching off process by 40% at 0,and fabricated FSC narrow-gap TN(NTN)-LCD through this research theu got the data of Luminance Efficiency(LE)of 5.1cd/W, while existing best LCD –TV has LE of 2.1cd/W; Dr.Kobayshi7s criterion for clearing The Energy Star Program Version 5-3(2012) will be 2.8cd/W.
FSC-Displays have a long history since1950’s, but a flat panel type FSC-LCD was demonstrated in 1985 at SID Symposium:
H. Hasebe and S. Kobayashi “A full color field sequential LCD using modulated backlight” 1985 SID International Symposium Digest of Technical Papers XXI, 81-84(1985) (Reference20).
After that, currently NTN-FSC-LCD s are installed in air-ports such as Narita International airport as indicators , in a few airports in China, and the railway station in Korea rapid trains.
NTN-FSC-LCDs are practically produced in a mass production and featured by the low power consumption and by a high legibility even under the direct sunshine.
During in these projects in every year he organized symposium and he invited one or two Professors from USA, mostly from KSU, Philippine, Malaysia, and from other countries. And he shared time with Professors on his/her sabbatical.
Dr. Kobayashi made contributions to some other fields such as human factors, color space, and other surface alignment technologies such as stretched polymer film . However, all most all above mentioned things are introduced and described in the following book:
PROGRESS IN LIQUID CRYSTAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY In Honor of Shunsuke Kobayashi’s 80th Birth Day. Edited by Hoi -Shi Kwok, Shohei Naemura and Hiap Liew Ong. (Reference21)
In this book,Dr. Kobayashi writes Part 1 Reminiscences Introduction “Memories of 43 years of liquid Crystal Research”.
In the Preface, Professor Kwok makes a reference to Dr. Kobayashi: ” He is well known not only for his own groundbreaking research, but also for the training of many prominent figures in the display industry, both in Japan and in other countries”
Education and training of liquid crystal science and LCD technology
Doctor Kobayashi educated student and visiting research fellow from companies and he brought up them:
7 PhD, 130 MA, and 350 BA, 4 Post Docs, 30 Visiting Research Fellow from companies.
Dr. Kobayashi served as an adjunctive professor as a member of examination of PhD thesis in the USA (Kent State Univ.), India (Raman Research Institute), and Singapore (Nanyang Technology University)
Among some of them became the CEO of companies of information display related materials and executive director, directors of research center of also information display , and 7 persons became professors of universities in Japan, Korea, and China.
Additional supporting materials
He has 50 patents as a co-inventor, where almost all patens are shared by university and companies who send visiting research fellows. And above mentioned papers are accompany with the relevant patents.
Dr. Kobayashi wrote 27monographes on LCs and LCDs; among them written in English are:
1) A book of the Reference 21
2) S. Kobayashi.H.Hori, Y.Tanaka ”Active Matrix LCD”
Chapet 10, Hand Book of Liquid Crystal. Edited J.Patel and J.Collings and J.Patel, Oxford University Press(1995)
3) S.Kobayashi Chapter 3 “Alignment of Liquid Crystals in LCD Applications” The Liquid Crystal Display Story 50 years of Liquid CrystalR&D that lead The Way of the Future Ed.N Koide Springer (2013).
4) LCD Back Lights, Ed. S. Kobayashi ,S. Mikoshiba ,and S-K. Kim an SID Book Series Wiley (2009).
Dr.Kobayashi wrote other technical monographs in Japanese; these books have been read by readers in many countries.