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Higemoto Lab
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The lab uses the elementary particle muon to study superconductors and magnetic materials.
AboutAbout the lab
Seeing inside materials with the elementary particle muon.
Higemoto Lab uses the elementary particle muon to study a variety of materials, including superconductors, magnetic materials, and semiconductors.
The main method is muon spin relaxation (μSR), which uses a large accelerator and is a large-scale experiment for condensed matter physics.
The main body of the lab is not on the Ookayama Campus but in Tokai Village, Ibaraki Prefecture, where the accelerator facility is located.
The lab was established as a collaborative program with the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, and master's students belong to it.
Key terms
- Muon
- Muon: an elementary particle in the same family as the electron (a lepton). It is also contained in cosmic rays and can be produced in large quantities with accelerators.
- μSR
- μSR (muon spin relaxation) method: a method for learning the states of electrons and atomic nuclei inside a material from how the direction of the muon spin changes.
- Spin liquid
- Spin liquid: a state in which the directions of electron spins do not align and no order forms, even at low temperatures.
ResearchResearch themes
The lab investigates the states inside materials by making use of the fact that the direction of the muon spin changes due to the magnetic fields created by electrons and atomic nuclei inside the material. It mainly uses the large proton accelerator J-PARC in Tokai Village, and also uses facilities at research institutes in Canada, Switzerland, and the UK and at Osaka University.
*Illustrative imageSuperconductors
Superconductivity is a phenomenon in which electrical resistance drops to zero at low temperatures and magnetic fields are completely expelled. Using μSR, the lab investigates basic information such as the superconducting pairing symmetry, the state of the superconducting gap, and the relationship with magnetism.
*Illustrative imageMagnetic Materials
There is growing interest in the ground states of magnetic materials, such as spin liquids, in which spins do not order even at low temperatures. Using μSR experiments at very low temperatures, the lab investigates the ground states of quantum spin systems and more.
MembersFaculty
Members of Higemoto Lab include faculty and master's students.As of 2026
- Project ProfessorWataru Higemoto
VoicesStudent voices
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “J-PARC muon experiment area” Kestrel / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Superconductors: “Meissner effect p1390048” Mai-Linh Doan / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Magnetic Materials: “Bar-magnet-iron-filings max” MikeRun, Vera Wurmsdobler / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (花井研究室): “A starling murmuration - geograph.org.uk - 6389346” Walter Baxter / CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (松尾研究室): “Dilution Refrigerator ( )” UCL Mathematical & Physical Sciences from London, UK / CC BY 2.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (関澤研究室): “Crab Nebula” NASA, ESA, J. Hester and A. Loll (Arizona State University) / Public domain (cropped)
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