Yasuhiko Arakawa Yasuhiko Arakawa Yasuhiko Arakawa (Japanese , "Arakawa Yasuhiko"; born 6 November 1952) is a Japanese physicist. His research focuses on semiconductor physics, including growth of nanostructures and their optoelectronic applications. Among his main achievements are the proposal of the concept of quantum dots and their application to quantum dot lasers, the observation of exciton-polariton Rabi-splitting in a semiconductor microcavity, or, recently, the first 3D photonic crystal nanocavity lasers with quantum dot gain. Yasuhiko Arakawa received a B.S. degree in 1975 and a Ph.D. degree in 1980, respectively, from the University of Tokyo, both in Electronics Engineering. In 1981 he became
Minoru Arakawa with the Radar Scope arcade game Arakawa was in charge of importing to the US, he rebounded by converting the poorly received Radar Scope to the phenomenally successful Donkey Kong, which has had many sequels. As this was first game to feature Mario, Arakawa is credited with naming the character, a name which stems from his, at the time, Italian landlord Mario Segale. Starting in 1985, he and Howard Lincoln were instrumental in rebuilding the North American video game industry (after the crash of 1983) with the Nintendo Entertainment System. Arakawa also hired Howard Philips, who would be invaluable to