In April 1988, he joined the Faculty of Engineering at Nagoya University as a Research Associate. In April 1992, he joined the Faculty of Science and Technology at Meijo University, where he served as Lecturer and Associate Professor before being appointed Professor in April 2002. In April 2010, he became Professor at the Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University. Since October 2015, he has served as Professor and Director of the Center for Integrated Research of Future Electronics within the Institute of Materials and Systems for Sustainability (IMaSS), Nagoya University. In April 2026, he was appointed Distinguished Professor and continues to serve as Director of the Center.

In 2014, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics together with the late Dr. Isamu Akasaki and Professor Shuji Nakamura of the University of California, Santa Barbara, for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs), which enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources. In the same year, he was honored as a Person of Cultural Merit and received the Order of Culture from the Government of Japan. He is currently engaged in research at Nagoya University on next-generation energy-saving devices, including highly efficient power semiconductors.

After receiving his M.S. from Kyoto University in 1972, he joined Asahi Kasei Corporation, where he invented the lithium-ion battery in the 1980s and completed a practical prototype. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2019.