A physicist who helped achieve continuous operation of semiconductor lasers at room temperature. A double heterostructure surrounded a thin active layer with different semiconductor layers, reducing the current needed to sustain lasing. This addressed a practical obstacle in early devices and helped make laser diodes useful for optical communication and other technologies.[ref]
https://www.kyotoprize.org/en/laureates/izuo_hayashi/. Achievement digest and citation: 1970 continuous operation and double-heterostructure confinement
