Toshihiro Aoki

Biography

Toshihiro Aoki, Ph.D., is a Project Scientist and TEM Leader at the Center for Transmission Electron Microscopy within the Irvine Materials Research Institute at the University of California, Irvine. Aoki oversees operations, applications, user training, and maintenance of S/TEM instruments, including the Nion UltraSTEM 200 HERMES and JEOL Grand ARM300CF double-corrected microscopes. His research focuses on materials characterization using aberration-corrected S/TEM, EELS, EDS, and 4D-STEM, with applications to functional oxides, high entropy materials, 2D materials, and vibrational spectroscopy in electron microscopes. He has authored and co-authored over 98 peer-reviewed articles in journals including Nature, Nature family journals, Science, Physical Review Letters, Nano Letters, Advanced Materials, Energy & Environmental Science, and Chemistry of Materials.

Before joining UC Irvine in 2016, Aoki spent eight years at JEOL USA, Inc. as an Applications Specialist, where he completed more than 40 field emission TEM/STEM acceptance tests and provided training on aberration-corrected electron microscopy to customers across North and Central America. He subsequently served as Principal Engineer and Assistant Research Engineer at the LeRoy Eyring Center for Solid State Science at Arizona State University, where he was recruited to establish operational capabilities for newly installed aberration-corrected microscopes and build collaborative research programs. This combination of industry experience and academic research has given him expertise in rapid alignment of electron optics, user training, maintenance, and troubleshooting.

Aoki earned his Ph.D. in Science and Engineering of Materials from Arizona State University. He received a Microscopy and Microanalysis Professional Technical Staff Award in 2023 from Microscopy Society of America and has served as a review panel member for the Center for Functional Nanomaterials user facilities at Brookhaven National Laboratory from 2013-2015. He has been an invited speaker at Microscopy and Microanalysis conferences and served as a symposium organizer for the 2021 M&M meeting.

Education

• Ph.D. in Science and Engineering of Materials, Arizona State University, 2003
• M.Eng. in Materials Science, Kumamoto University, 2000
• B.Eng. in Materials Science, Kumamoto University, 1998

Distinctions

• Professional Technical Staff Award, Microscopy and Microanalysis, 2023
• Poster Award 1st Place, EDGE 2013 Meeting, 2013
• MSA Poster Award 1st Place, Microscopy and Microanalysis, 2005
• Young Scientist Award, Japan Institute of Metals, 1998
• Outstanding Student Paper Award, Workshop on the Physics and Chemistry of II-VI Materials, 2002