is a Japanese manufacturer of optical sensors (including photomultiplier tubes), electric light sources, and other optical devices and their applied instruments for scientific, technical and medical use. The company was founded in 1953 by Heihachiro Horiuchi, a former student of

Kenjiro Takayanagi was a Japanese engineer and a pioneer in the development of television. Although he failed to gain much recognition in the West, he built the world's first all-electronic television receiver, and is referred to as "the father of Japanese televisi ...

, who is known as "the father of Japanese television". Hermann Simon, a leading German business author and thinker, mentioned Hamamatsu in his book titled ''Hidden Champions of the Twenty-First Century: The Success Strategies of Unknown World Market Leaders'' as an example of a " Hidden Champion". As examples of uses, Hamamatsu CCD image sensors are used at the Subaru Telescope of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, and the sensors made by the company also helped confirm the existence of the Higgs boson in research that led to the 2013 Nobel Physics prize. Hamamatsu Photonics' photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) were used in the

Super-Kamiokande Super-Kamiokande (abbreviation of Super-Kamioka Neutrino Detection Experiment, also abbreviated to Super-K or SK; ja, スーパーカミオカンデ) is a Neutrino detector, neutrino observatory located Kamioka Observatory, under Mount Ikeno ...

neutrino A neutrino ( ; denoted by the Greek letter ) is a fermion (an elementary particle with spin of ) that interacts only via the weak interaction and gravity. The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass ...

detector facility at the University of Tokyo where 2015 Nobel Prize Laureate

Takaaki Kajita is a Japanese physicist, known for neutrino experiments at the Kamioka Observatory – Kamiokande and its successor, Super-Kamiokande. In 2015, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Canadian physicist Arthur B. McDonald. On 1 ...

conducted his research. In using products contributed by Hamamatsu Photonics, "Kajita was able to prove that neutrinos do in fact have mass -- a major shift in our fundamental understanding of how the universe works," said Tom Baer, chair of the Photonics Industry Neuroscience Group of the National Photonics Initiative. "This win is a tremendous accomplishment for Kajita and Hamamatsu Photonics."

References

External links

Hamamatsu Photonics Global siteHamamatsu Photonics U.S. and European Web site
Electronics companies of Japan Defense companies of Japan Companies based in Shizuoka Prefecture Electronics companies established in 1953 Technology companies established in 1953 Companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Photonics companies Japanese brands Japanese companies established in 1953 Hamamatsu {{tech-company-stub