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Obituary Professor ShozoSawada (1917-2001)Masaaki Takashige aa Iwaki Meisei University , Chuohdai, Iwaki-shi,Fukushima, 970-8551, JapanPublished online: 24 Sep 2010.

To cite this article: Masaaki Takashige (2002) Obituary Professor Shozo Sawada(1917-2001), Ferroelectrics, 266:1, 1-3, DOI: 10.1080/00150190211455

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00150190211455

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Ferroelectrics, 2002, Vol. 266, pp. 1–3 c© 2002 Taylor & FrancisReprints available directly from the publisherPhotocopying permitted by license only

ObituaryProfessor Shozo Sawada (1917–2001)

MASAAKI TAKASHIGE

Iwaki Meisei University, Chuohdai, Iwaki-shi, Fukushima 970-8551, Japan

(Received July 2, 2000)

Professor Shozo Sawada as the President of Iwaki Meisei University(in October 1997).

It is both sad and an honor to pay tribute to the memory of the late Pro-fessor Shozo Sawada who passed away, on January 10th of 2001. As is wellknown, he is the discoverer of ferroelectrics such as sodium nitrite NaNO2,

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rubidium zinc tetrachloride Rb2ZnCl4, which are popular substances in ourferroelectricity community. He was one of the oldest members who madethe foundation of ferroelectricity community in Japan. He published morethan 170 refereed articles in international scientific journals and wrote andedited more than 30 books related to physics.

Prof. Sawada was born in 1917, in Toyama, Japan. After he graduatedfrom Department of Physics, the University of Tokyo, in 1941, he builthis first laboratory of experimental physics as an associate professor in“Seoul Imperial University” (at that time). However, in 1945, he had tocome back to Tokyo with nothing but his clothes due to the surrender ofJapan at termination of World War II. Under the difficult situation afterthe war, he built his laboratory again in the University of Tokyo and wasengaged in the research of ferroelectric BaTiO3, which had been foundindependently, in Japan, USA and USSR during the war. Although therewas almost nothing for experiments, he studied a lot of solid solutionsrelated toABO3 perovskite oxides. Even now there several of his prominentpapers about specific heat, dielectric and dilatometric properties of BaTiO3

and mixed system related to PbTiO3 are often referred to.After Japanese society settled down, he got opportunity to stay at

Prof. G. C. Danielson’s laboratory in Iowa State University, as a Fulbright re-searcher during 1956–1957, where he undertook optical birefringence stud-ies of WO3. It was the golden age of the study of ferroelectricity when a lotof new non-oxide ferroelectrics such as GASH, TGS were discovered in theUSA. It was really stimulating for him and he came to have one idea: searchfor new ferroelectrics in molecular crystals. In fact, a lot of molecular crystalsundergoing phase transitions were known at that time but their ferroelectric-ity had not been investigated well. Just after came back to Japan, he suc-cessfully achieved the discovery of ferroelectricity of NaNO2 in May 1958.The reason he chose NaNO2 as a candidate of molecular crystal was simple,since it had been used for fluorescent X-ray studies by Prof. S. Makishimain the next laboratory. It may be said that we always need a sort of luck whenwe meet a big discovery, but it goes without saying that this luck was broughtby his own will and effort. Since then, NaNO2 became one of the mostlyinvestigated ferroelectrics as well as BaTiO3, KDP, which together con-tributed greatly to the understanding of many respects such as order-disorderphase transition mechanism, incommensurate phase, etc. To date, more than500 papers have been published concerning ferroelectric and phase transi-tional properties of NaNO2.

After the discovery of NaNO2, he was appointed as a full professor ofTokyo Institute of Technology, Department of Physics, in November 1958,

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PROFESSOR SHOZO SAWADA (1917–2001) 3

where for the next twenty years he developed very wide research for fer-roelectrics and educated many students including myself. As well as hisscientific activity, he played an important role in the university administra-tion and he acted as the dean of the faculty of science twice. In particular, itwas the age of a campus dispute by student power globally from the middle60’s to the early 70’s. He shared the pain of the young generation. As a result,the time for his experiment decreased. But, however short it would be, heappeared in the laboratory and sat down before a 50 Hz hysteresis bridge.When the campus became quiet again in 1975, such effort was rewardedby the discovery of Rb2ZnCl4, which shows ferroelectricity and lock-inphase transitions. As regards to Rb2ZnCl4 group ferroelectrics, more than200 papers have been published to date.

He retired to Tokyo Institute of Technology in April 1978, but Japaneseprivate universities being expansive in the high growth economy still neededhim. He bacame the professor of Chubu University and Meisei Universityin 1978 and 1981, respectively. Furthermore, in 1987, he was concernedwith the large planning program that was the foundation of a new univer-sity called Iwaki Meisei University. In this foundation, he played the centralrole such as basic design of faculties and hiring professors, and he acted asthe president of this university during 1995∼1990. Also in these three uni-versities, together with collaborators, he built laboratories on experimentalphysics of ferroelectrics and not only educated undergraduate students butalso supervised doctoral students and gave them PhDs.

As described above, Prof. Sawada spent almost 60 years with universities.He was just the leader of an old good era. He was very polished gentlemanand was very silent person but had a very special atmosphere sending outdignity only by sitting there. I believe that this originated from the sincerityand honesty of his personality.

Finally, I would like to give respect for his achievements and pray for therepose of his soul.

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