Collaboration Research Centers and Facilities

International Research Center for Nuclear Materials Science

Dai AOKI

Head/Prof.Dai AOKI

  • Specially Appointed Prof.  Kazuya IDEMITSU
  • Assoc. Prof. Kenta YOSHIDA
  • Assist. Prof. Ai NAKAMURA
  • Assist. Prof. Yusei SHIMIZU

Challenges of Various Developments on Nuclear Energy Studies

The center is open to researchers all over the world for the collaborative studies using irradiated materials and actinide elements, as the leading center in the related research fi eld for more than 50 years since its foundation.

The center has worked on a variety of research topics: understanding the degradation mechanisms of light water reactor materials, developing advanced fission and fusion reactor materials, separating and analyzing nuclear waste, the condensed matter physics of actinide compounds with 5f electrons, developing advanced nuclear fuel, and absolute dating.

The center has established research partnerships with world-class research institutes with research reactors in other countries, which promote collaboration on neutron irradiation and the sharing of personnel and technologies. The unique characteristics of the center have been strengthened. State-of-the-art post-irradiation experimental techniques are available very close to a hot laboratory with a huge capacity for nuclear fuel and radioisotope elements.

nuclear-energy related materials, nano-structural analysis, actinides, heavy fermion
Equipment for microstructural analysis of highly-activated irradiated materials

Equipment for microstructural analysis of highly-activated irradiated materials: Aberration-corrected transmission electron microscope (left), Laser-assisted three-dimensional atom probe (right)

Tetra-arc furnace for growing high-quality single crystals in order to investigate the exotic electronic properties of actinide compounds

Tetra-arc furnace for growing high-quality single crystals in order to investigate the exotic electronic properties of actinide compounds

About IMR