Senior Engineer Shunsuke Makimura of IPNS, KEK and his team, “Tungsten Innovator,” won the partner company prize “Sanwa Needle Bearing Award” at the 9th Ibaraki Tech Plan Grand Prix, held at the Tsukuba International Congress Center on February 7, 2026.
At J-PARC (Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex) in Tokai Village, highly intense proton beams driven by an accelerator are collided with a “target” to generate secondary particles for experiments. Mr. Makimura is developing a target that produces elementary particles called muons. Because targets require high density and strength, researchers consider tungsten to be suitable for this purpose.
However, tungsten has a critical limitation: it becomes brittle at high temperatures (recrystallization embrittlement). Mr. Makimura’s story with tungsten began with the desire to develop a tough material that overcomes this vulnerability. The industry-academia collaboration team, “Tungsten Innovator,” successfully developed “Super-high temperature tungsten,” which maintains its toughness even when exposed to super-high temperatures of 1600 degrees Celsius. Furthermore, tungsten also has the drawback of being too hard to process into complex shapes. They also succeeded in developing “superplastic tungsten,” which overcomes this drawback and can be freely shaped, stretching by 300 percent like taffy. These two types of tungsten hold the potential for various industrial applications.
From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, tungsten supported the Industrial Revolution as the filament of the light bulb. Tungsten Innovator believes that their “high heat-resistant and superplastic tungsten” can trigger a new “Second Industrial Revolution.”
At the award ceremony, Atsushi Shimada, Executive Officer of TNK SANWA PRECISION CO., LTD., which handles metal processing, praised their work: “Listening to today’s presentation, I felt the tremendous potential of tungsten. We want to spark an industrial revolution and pioneer a new industry together.” Just as Mr. Makimura called out to the audience, “Second Industrial Revolution. Let’s do it together!”, technology born in the laboratory has gained a strong industrial partner and taken a step toward changing the world.
Additionally, Quantum Flowers & Foods (QFF), which uses neutron beams generated at J-PARC and works on creating climate-resilient crops, was also selected as a finalist and won the “Nitto Denki Group Award.”
The Tech Plan Grand Prix is a contest that discovers and nurtures the seeds of science and technology born in universities and research institutes as businesses. It is organized by Leave a Nest Co., Ltd. (headquartered in Tokyo and Osaka), which promotes “knowledge manufacturing,” held in various regions.