Seishi Kikuchi was born and grew up in Tokyo. He graduated in 1926 from
Tokyo Imperial University. In 1928, Kikuchi and
Shoji Nishikawa observed and gave a theoretical explanation of the
electron backscatter diffraction pattern from a
calcite cleavage face. In 1929, he went to Germany as a student and stayed at the
University of Göttingen and
Leipzig University. In 1934, he was appointed as professor at
Osaka Imperial University and directed the construction of Japan's first DC high voltage
Cockcroft-Walton accelerator. In 1955, he was appointed as the first director of the Institute of Nuclear Research at the
University of Tokyo, and successfully presided over the completion of the variable energy
cyclotron. Between 1959 and 1964, he was chairman of the
Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute. ==References==