Masato Sagawa

Masato Sagawa (佐川眞人; born August 3, 1943, in Tokushima, Japan) is a Japanese scientist and entrepreneur, and the inventor of the sintered permanent neodymium magnet (NdFeB). Sagawa was awarded the Japan Prize and IEEE Medal for Environmental and Safety Technologies for his efforts.

Sagawa initially conceived and developed the sintered NdFeB when he was with Fujitsu Laboratories, where he worked from 1972 to 1982. Lacking his supervisor's support for the new magnetic compound, Sagawa resigned in 1981, joining Sumitomo Special Metals. Shortly after joining Sumitomo he had developed the NdFeB magnet. Sagawa presented the new discovery of NdFeB magnet during the Magnetism and Magnetic Materials Conference in November 1983 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. During this same time period, John Croat from General Motors (GM) had independently discovered the same Nd₂Fe₁₄B compound.

In 1988, Sagawa founded Intermetallics, a research and development company devoted to the development of neodymium magnets. Sagawa founded NDFEB Corporation in 2012, where he is currently president.

Sagawa has worked on improving the NdFeB magnetic materials' magnetic properties, with over 60 patents for his work related to NdFeB. The 2022 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering was awarded to him for the discovery, development and global commercialisation of the neodymium-iron-boron (Nd-Fe-B) magnet.