Akira Fujishima

Akira Fujishima is the kind of scientist whose work is quietly everywhere — on self-cleaning windows, hospital surfaces, air purifiers — even if his name never makes a headline. Back in 1972, as a doctoral student at the University of Tokyo, he and his advisor Honda discovered that shining light on titanium dioxide could split water and break down organic grime, a phenomenon now called the Honda-Fujishima effect. That one observation basically launched the entire field of photocatalysis. Decades later, the Japan Prize in 2004 and the designation as a Person of Cultural Merit in 2010 confirmed what the scientific world already knew: this was landmark work. There's something genuinely poetic about a guy from Setagaya spending his career harnessing light to keep the world a little cleaner — no fanfare, just physics, patience, and an enormous downstream impact that most people never think to trace back to him.

Akira Fujishima is a Japanese chemist and academic born on March 10, 1942, in Setagaya, Tokyo. He is affiliated with the University of Tokyo, where he has conducted long-term research and teaching. Fujishima is internationally recognized for his contributions to chemistry, receiving the Japan Prize in 2004, being designated a Person of Cultural Merit in 2010, and receiving the Thomson Reuters Citation Laureate Award in 2012.

Name (English)

Akira Fujishima

Name (Japanese)

藤嶋昭

Reading

ふじしま あきら

Born

March 10, 1942 (age 84)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Pisces / Horse

Origin

Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan

Occupation

Chemist / University Professor

University

University of Tokyo

Awards & achievements

• Person of Cultural Merit (2010)
• Japan Prize (2004)
• Thomson Reuters Citation Laureate Award (2012)

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%97%A4%E5%B6%8B%E6%98%AD
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1140092

Tags

• From Tokyo
• Chemist
• University Professor

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.