Certain organic materials, such as certain plastics that contain carbon, emit light if an electric current is passed through them.These light-emitting elements that utilize the phenomenon of electricity being converted into light without generating much heat-i.e., organic electroluminescence-have recently attracted a lot of attention.Electroluminescence (EL) is a phenomenon in which materials release energy in the form of light when excited by an electric current.According to Professor Kido, organic EL elements are a kind of light-emitting diode (LED) that works with direct current.Its elemental structure is a sandwich construction in which an organic thin film is caught between two electrodes, causing it to emit light when an electric current is applied.In the production of organic EL, rare-earth metals (kido-rui kinzoku in Japanese), such as iridium, are used as a complex, and they have been widely used as fluorescent or magnetic materials.Although Professor Kido says, with an overlay of humor, that he became interested in this area of study because the Japanese pronunciation of rare-earth (kido) is the same as his surname, he has now become a world authority in the field of organic EL.

After finishing his undergraduate studies in applied chemistry at Waseda University in Japan, he worked hard on the idea of making luminiferous plastics by using a battery at Polytechnic University in New York.Although dedicated to research in organic EL during his final year in the university's Ph.D.program, he could not make the element luminesce and returned to Japan. Following his university professor's advice, he then joined Yamagata University as a teaching assistant in 1989.After five years of research there, he eventually made an innovative breakthrough in 1993.At that time, because he had already succeeded in making elements emit blue light, he was engaged in an experiment to put red pigment into organic materials in order to overcome the second hurdle: making elements emit red light.It was commonly held, even in the 1990s, that the combination of more than one color would appear red-the light with the longest wavelength.According to Professor Kido, the failure of his students' experiment gave him the idea that mixing the three primary colors (RGB)(note1) in a lesser concentration might cause the material to emit white light.In his subsequent research on white light emission, he succeeded in making organic EL emit white light, thereby defying the common belief that organic EL could never generate white light.

Professor Kido's successful research in making organic EL generate white light was published in Science magazine and caused worldwide reverberations. In addition, his accomplishment was extensively covered by newspapers and magazines in the United States. According to his book Japan's Edison: The Ideas of Junji Kido (2004), the man who invented white light-emitting organic EL (Kido) shares the same birthday with the man who invented the white incandescent light bulb (Thomas Edison, the master of invention). Comparing a fluorescent lamp with a fire fly, the luminous efficiency of a firefly's light-nearly 100%-is incomparably higher than that of a regular light bulb or fluorescent lamp-10-20%. Furthermore, the firefly is an organic life form that generates light organically. As Professor Kido has originally been interested in this fact since the early days of his career, it can be said that his discovery of white light emitting organic EL, as compared to Edison's discovery of the white incandescent light bulb, was an embodiment of his idea.

Why has this organic EL drawn worldwide attention? Organic EL is a high-resolution display system utilizing the phenomenon of certain organic materials emitting light when an electric current is applied. Unlike liquid crystals, which are widely used in flat monitors, organic EL produces its own light, does not need a backlight system, and consumes extremely little electricity. Likewise, organic EL has better visibility, since it allows users to see obliquely. It also has a feature that enables display systems to be reduced in width, size, and weight to the maximum extent.

Professor Kido is currently the project leader of the Yamagata Organic Electronics Valley Initiative at the Research Institute for Organic Electronics in Yonezawa City, Yamagata, as well as the director thereof. He is, indeed, a leader of a national project. This initiative aims at creating new industries in the region by attracting and accumulating industrial entities in the field of organic electronics, specifically organic EL, which is thought to be a cutting-edge lighting technology for the next generation. The institute is responsible for strengthening the technological capabilities and competitiveness of business entities in the region, offering incentives to develop new fields, and fostering mid-level technical experts. Also, it strives to put organic EL into practical use as early as possible by such as actively accepting joint research projects, developing new practical applications of the technology in consideration of the given market environment, and offering to rent out laboratories. In so doing, the institute aims at evolving into a promising, marketable research institute and transferring technology to enterprises, either within or outside Yamagata, as a center of excellence in the field of organic electronics in Japan. In other words, this is a nationally and internationally high-profile project in this field that is intended to support joint research among enterprises, development of applications, trial production, product commercialization, and business development. Professor Kido is the absolute central figure of this project. The potential of organic EL has just emerged. Nevertheless, there is a diverse range of possible applications ahead including a laminate-thin displays and illuminations from a wall surface, which have only existed in science fiction. What kinds of fruit will this technology bear? That question is now the focus of world attention.