Foreword
Ryoichi Ito, President
The Japan Society of Applied Physics

Welcome to ‘The Japan Society of Applied Physics International’(JSAPI)! The creation of this booklet, the very first issue ofJSAPI, is part of the millennium celebrations of The Japan Society ofApplied Physics (JSAP).
JSAPI will act as a forum for communication between The Japan
Society Applied Physics and the international science and engineeringcommunity world-wide. It is therefore appropriate for me to take thisrare opportunity to give you a brief introduction to JSAP and tell you
something of what we are doing.
JSAP was founded in 1932 as the publishing body for ‘OYO BUTURI’(‘Applied Physics’) and, in 1946, JSAP was formally established as aJapanese academic society. ‘OYO BUTURI’ continues to be the current
membership journal of JSAP.
What distinguishes JSAP from most other physical societies in Japan and elsewhere is that we aim to bridge the gap between scienceand engineering with physics as the main common denominator. In
fact, 60% of our members belong to industry. Today, the total numberof members of JSAP stands at about 23,000 and, between them, they
represent a very wide range of scientific and engineering endeavour.
Although only 1% of the members of JSAP live outside Japan,
there exist innumerable connections between many of our members
and individuals and organizations overseas. Indeed, we have seen asignificant growth in the number of overseas participants in our academic meetings. And that is what has motivated us to reach out more
directly, through JSAPI, to people outside Japan.
JSAP, being an interdisciplinary society, covers a very broad spectrum of topics, ranging from solid-state electronics, through bio- andmolecular electronics, optics, photonics, quantum electronics, radiationtechnology, plasma electronics and measurement and control technology on the one hand, to crystal technology, vacuum and thin film technology, superconductivity, and particle beam technology on the other.
I believe that a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary approach to problems,such as that followed by JSAP, is essential if we are to meet the formidable challenges that we all face in this new century.
JSAP holds a major meeting in Spring and Fall every year and sponsors a number of international conferences and workshops, such as theVLSI Symposium, the Solid State Devices and Materials Conference, andthe Optical Memory Symposium. The Spring and Fall meetings are ourmain venues for the exchange of scientific information. There you candiscuss, for example, the latest R&D results of our members.
The Spring meeting, which is held in or near Tokyo, attracts morethan 8,000 participants and well over 4,000 presentations of originaland review papers. At the Fall meeting, which is held outside Tokyo,
there are a further 3,500 or so presentations and, all told, about 6,000
scientists and engineers gather to take part in the academic events andenjoy the local cuisine. In these meetings, as in other JSAP meetings,
most of the papers are presented in Japanese, but participants are free
to contribute to any of the discussions in English.
Our monthly membership journal, ‘OYO BUTURI’, is mainly writ-ten in Japanese. JSAP also publishes ‘The Japanese Journal of Applied
Physics’ (JJAP) in cooperation with The Physical Society of Japan. JJAP isa two-part English-language research journal devoted to the coverageof topics in all fields of applied physics; Part 1 is essentially a regularmonthly publication of research papers, while Part 2 is a semi-monthly
publication of letters. Annually, JJAP publishes as many as 10,000 pagesof original articles and is frequently cited in other international journals.
An interesting feature of JJAP is that ten special issues per annum are
devoted to the publication of papers based on presentations at JSAPsponsored international conferences. One of the divisions of JSAP, The
Optical Society of Japan, publishes the international journal ‘OpticalReview’.
In order to promote more intimate interactions within JSAP, wehave created seven regional chapters and ten subject divisions. Currently active are the divisions of optics, radiation science, solid statephysics and applications, thin film and surface physics, materials science and crystal technology, education in applied physics, organic molecular electronics and bio-electronics, superconductors, plasma electronics and silicon technology. They each have their own publications
and their own programs of meetings. Other activities of JSAP include
promoting the public understanding of science. We hold science andtechnology expositions for children, science classes for elementary school
teachers and open lectures for general audiences. In cooperation withother technical societies, we are planning to develop web-sites at which
volunteer members of JSAP will answer questions on science and technology posed by children and laypersons. In view of the increasing importance of science and technology on the one hand and the diminishing interest of young people in this area on the other hand, I envisionthat we will become more active in raising the level of public awarenessof science and technology.
JSAP has signed reciprocal privilege agreements with a number ofnational and international societies: IEEE, IEEE (LEOS), IEEE (EDS), EPS,APS, IOP, OSA and KPS. Nonetheless, we expect to see more competition between academic and technical societies world-wide. It is my belief that this will become an unfortunate trend. Science and technology
should not be monopolized by a small number of large countries but
should be shared by all people. Academic societies such as ours have an
important responsibility in this regard and a key role to play in disseminating knowledge and maximizing the benefits of science and technology for everyone. This we can do by promoting mutual appreciation
and understanding through the internationalization of our scientificefforts.
I hope you will enjoy this booklet. Please let us know how we canmake the forthcoming issues serve you better.

JSAP International No.1 (January 2000)

JSAPI

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