The Department of Physics is pleased to announce the winner of the 2025 Paul and May Chu Undergraduate Research Award. The Paul and May Chu Undergraduate Research Award (Honorable Mention) is awarded to Junjie PENG.
Paul and May Chu Undergraduate Research Award, Honorable Mention – Junjie PENG
“For construction of realistic tight-binding models for layered materials V2X2O-family and symmetry analysis of spin transport and MOKE in altermagnets” under the supervision of Prof. Junwei Liu.
Junjie Peng has conducted focused research in condensed matter physics since joining Prof. Junwei Liu’s group. He independently derived efficient tight-binding models for layered V₂X₂O-family altermagnets to capture their unconventional response properties, performed systematic symmetry analysis to predict novel spin conductivity, and investigated the magneto-optical Kerr effect (MOKE) as a reliable optical fingerprint for detecting altermagnetic order. His discovery will facilitate future studies of altermagnetism and its application in spintronics.