Amano was born in Hamamatsu, Japan on September 11, 1960. He received his BE, ME and DE degree in 1983, 1985 and 1989, respectively, from Nagoya University. From 1988 to 1992, he was a research associate at Nagoya University. In 1992, He moved to Meijo University, where he was an assistant professor. From 1998 till 2002, He was an associate professor. In 2002, he became a professor. In 2010, he moved to the Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University, where he is currently a professor.

He joined Professor Isamu Akasaki's group in 1982 as an undergraduate student. Since then, he has been doing research on the growth, characterization and device applications of group III nitride semiconductors, which are well known as materials used in blue light-emitting diodes. In 1985, he developed low-temperature deposited buffer layers for the growth of group III nitride semiconductor films on a sapphire substrate, which led to the realization of group-III-nitride semiconductor based light-emitting diodes and laser diodes. In 1989, he succeeded in growing p-type GaN and fabricating a p-n-junction-type GaN-based UV/blue light-emitting diode for the first time in the world.