In the 2025 academic year, College of Science and Engineering Aoyama Gakuin University celebrated its 60th anniversary. It was established at the Maesawa Campus in 1965, renamed the Setagaya Campus in 1971, and moved to Sagamihara Campus in 2003 when College of Science and Engineering Setagaya and Atsugi Campuses were closed.

The 60th anniversary event, held on February 23, 2026 (Monday, national holiday), was planned with the hope that alumni would visit Sagamihara Campus and see the current state of the Faculty of College of Science and Engineering. We also wanted to inform them about our research, so we held it in conjunction with the Meet up in AGU, a research seed presentation event held annually by the Liaison Center.

​A pre-event was held on the morning of the main event. During the research facility and laboratory tour, the Instrumental Analysis Center and 10 laboratories were open to the public, allowing visitors to see a part of the research environment of the Faculty of College of Science and Engineering. At Wesley Chapel, Professor Yuka Wadera, the university's religious Chief, conducted the 60th anniversary service, which was well-attended. In her sermon, Professor Wadera used the word "takeover." The stained glass and pipe organ in Wesley Chapel were inherited from the Atsugi campus, and it made us reflect on how the Faculty of Science and College of Science and Engineering has inherited various things from Setagaya and Atsugi to reach where it is today. In the cafeteria, nostalgic menu items from the Setagaya era were offered, allowing many people to enjoy a special lunch. Although we had announced in advance that a nursing and diaper changing space would be available, many alumni came with their families and young children. Many alumni from the Setagaya era were visiting Sagamihara campus for the first time, and we were able to welcome alumni from a wide range of generations. We distributed programs at Main Gate, and we were blessed with so many visitors that all 500 copies we prepared were gone.

In the plenary session in the first half of the lecture, Prof. Yoshito Tobe, Director of the Liaison Center, opened the session, INAZUMI Hiroshige President and College of Science and Engineering Makoto Ukai, a 12th year student of Executive Trustee, followed by a lecture by myself, an academic General Manager, titled "The Present Location and Future of Aoyama Gakuin University College of Science and Engineering". I introduced the efforts to revitalize the graduate school of science and engineering, and explained that as a result of the development of various support systems such as tuition waiver, the percentage of students entering the Master's Program (Master's Program) in the university exceeded 50%, the number of students in the Doctoral Program has dramatically increased, and these have led to the revitalization of research throughout College of Science and Engineering and internationally highly acclaimed The lecture also introduced that the number of doctoral students has increased dramatically, leading to the revitalization of research at as a whole, and that internationally acclaimed research is being actively conducted. He also introduced efforts to increase the ratio of female students, such as the special entrance examination for women in science and engineering that started from the 2026 entrance examination. 2025, the ratio of female students at College of Science and Engineering was about 20%, which is a significant increase compared to the Setagaya period, but still low internationally, and we aim to further increase the ratio of female students through continuous efforts. We aim to further increase the ratio of women through continuous efforts.

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The second half of the lecture series was a "Meet Up in AGU" event featuring "Introduction to the Latest Research Topics." Research presentations were given in four venues across seven departments, and alumni from each department listened attentively to the latest research findings. Following this, a poster session was held, with presentations by 17 faculty members, as well as 11 doctoral students receiving support from the Japan Science and Technology Agency's "AGU Future Eagle Project," a program supporting next-generation researchers. While there were lively discussions in front of the posters, there were also moments of lively conversation between faculty and alumni, making for a vibrant poster session.

This year's event commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Faculty College of Science and Engineering was a great success, thanks to the support of many faculty members and administrative staff, including faculty members who are alumni of the Faculty of Science and College of Science and Engineering. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Professor Jun Akimitsu, who kindly agreed to give a lecture, and to everyone who cooperated. We intend to do our utmost to ensure that the College of Science and Engineering can continue to develop for the next 75, 100 years and beyond, and that we can pass on its legacy to the future. We would appreciate your continued support for College of Science and Engineering.

Research facility and laboratory tours

Many people, including alumni and their families, attended the event, providing a valuable opportunity for them to directly experience the cutting-edge research being conducted by our university's Faculty of College of Science and Engineering.

College of Science and Engineering 60th Anniversary Service

Associate Professor Yuka Wade, Chief religious affairs for College of Science and Engineering, conducted a commemorative service College of Science and Engineering 60th anniversary at Wesley Chapel.

Service lunch

In the cafeteria, we offered a service lunch that included beef stew, a recreation of a menu item from the cafeteria during the Setagaya campus era.

Today, I would like to share some memories from my time Aogaku, along with my research in my field of specialization, "superconductivity."

My research career began during my doctoral studies, when I measured the two-dimensional quasi-elastic scattering of the magnetic material _MnTiO3 using neutron diffraction. Later, I became an assistant at the Institute for Solid State Physics, University of Tokyo, where I set up a polarized neutron diffraction apparatus with Associate Professor Ito and conducted research on various magnetic materials. In that research, I succeeded in directly verifying the intriguing phenomenon of orbital alignment _in the two-dimensional ferromagnet _K2CuO4.

After that, I became an associate professor at Aoyama Gakuin University, but I felt it was difficult to provide many students with research topics using only large-scale equipment for neutron diffraction research, so I gradually shifted the research theme to "the search for new superconductors." On the other hand, I realized the joy of teaching students through the classes I taught. After that, I made many memories, such as going out for drinks with students, holding research presentations at the Shonan International Village Center and other venues, and inviting them to my home once a year.

My pride and joy during my time at Aogaku Aogaku University was probably that my research lab produced the most master's students at the time, and that many of them went on to doctoral programs. My lab had a diverse group of students, including not only high-achieving students but also students who had to repeat a year, and they all conducted their research freely. Many couples from the lab got married, and my research life surrounded by such unique students was truly enjoyable.

Since then, many researchers have continued to strive to discover superconducting materials. In the search for materials, the guideline set by American physicist Bernd T. Matthias that "oxides are unsuitable" was considered important, but in 1986 a major event occurred. JG Bednorz and K.A. Muller of IBM Zurich Research Laboratory discovered a new superconductor from copper oxide [Figure 2].
Furthermore_, Paul Ching-Wu Chu discovered an oxide superconductor called _YBa₂Cu₃ > _Oₙ-δ, which caused a great stir in the world of physics [Figure 3].

As you can see in [Figure 4], the discovery of this copper oxide demonstrates just how rapidly the Tc value increased.

When I considered what to do next, the first thing I thought of was whether I could create similar compounds using substances with similar ionic radii, such as ^La³⁺ and ^Ba²⁺ [Figure 5].

Unfortunately, however, candidate ions such as ^Hg²⁺, ^Tl³⁺, and ^Cd²⁺ are toxic, and because of the risk of accidents occurring in a research lab with many students, we decided against trying them, and only ^Bi³⁺ was attempted [Figure 6]. In this experiment, we found a superconductor called _{Bi₂Sr₂CuO₆} with a Tc of _8K, but this Tc was so low that _it attracted little attention.

However, Maeda later discovered a superconductor with Tc = 110K using Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O [Figure 7]. In fact, before this announcement, a student in my lab suggested adding Ca, but at the time I was convinced that adding ^Ca²⁺ to ^Sr²⁺ would result in the two ions forming a solid solution and no new material being created, so I did not conduct the experiment. This was a great regret for me, as I was trapped by the conventional wisdom of the time.

So, we decided to change our approach and, as a research group, shift our focus from limiting ourselves to oxides alone to exploring superconductors with a broader perspective. This proved successful, leading to numerous discoveries [Table 1] [Table 2].

A prime example is the superconducting material _MgB₂. This crystal has a honeycomb lattice structure and exhibits superconductivity at a relatively high temperature of 39K absolute. The research members at the time were Yuji Zenitani, Takahiro Muranaka, Akio Nakagawa, and Jun Nagamatsu, who discovered this material. I remember Nagamatsu rushing into the lecture hall where I was teaching and telling me, "Professor, we've found it!" The students in the classroom gave a big round of applause [Figure 8][Figure 9].

Incidentally, Bernd T. Matthias had studied almost all metal diborides (_MB2 type), but for some reason, _MgB2 was the only one he overlooked. It could be said that this led to the current discovery, so it seems that "luck" also plays a role in research [Figure 10].

The applications of superconductivity are diverse, including medical technologies such as MRI, transportation such as maglev trains, and information technology. In particular, in the energy sector, it is attracting great attention as a fundamental technology for a "superconducting Earth power network" that efficiently utilizes renewable energy [Figure 11].