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, 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 is the telescope of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, located at the Mauna Kea Observatory on Hawaii. It is named after the open star cluster known in English as the Pleiades. It had the largest monolithic primary mirror in the wo ...

of the

National Astronomical Observatory of Japan The (NAOJ) is an astronomical research organisation comprising several facilities in Japan, as well as an observatory in Hawaii and Chile. It was established in 1988 as an amalgamation of three existing research organizations - the Tokyo Astron ...

, and the sensors made by the company also helped confirm the existence of the

Higgs boson The Higgs boson, sometimes called the Higgs particle, is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics produced by the quantum excitation of the Higgs field, one of the fields in particle physics theory. In the Stand ...

in research that led to the 2013 Nobel Physics prize. Hamamatsu Photonics' photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) were used in the Super-Kamiokande neutrino detector facility at the University of Tokyo where 2015 Nobel Prize Laureate Takaaki Kajita 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