News & Events - 1003

Prof. Kam Biu Luk’ homepage Read more

Congratulations to Prof. Che Ting Chan, Prof. Jensen Li, and Prof. Bei Zeng of the Department of Physics for important recognition of their research achievements. Prof. Che Ting Chan was elected Member of the Hong Kong Academy of Sciences (ASHK). The ASHK was founded in 2015 with the purpose to promote the development, advancement, and teaching of science and technology in Hong Kong, to educate and inform the public on issues pertaining to science and technology, and to foster Hong Kong as a centre of scientific excellence. Elected Membership in the Academy represents the highest academic honour in the field of science and technology that Hong Kong peers can bestow. Prof. Jensen Li was elected Member of the Hong Kong Young Academy of Sciences (YASHK). Established as a chapter of the ASHK in 2018, the YASHK is comprised of members in their early and mid-career who contribute jointly with the ASHK to the advancement and promotion of science and technology in Hong Kong. Prof. Bei Zeng was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS). Prof. Zeng was nominated for this prestigious Fellowship by the Division of Quantum Information, which cited her “For pioneering work and contributions in quantum information science (QIS), including error correction and fault-tolerance, many-body entanglement, quantum tomography, quantum marginals, and QIS applications in quantum matter, and for her long-term contribution to QIS services and education.” The APS Fellowship Program was established to recognize members who have made exceptional contributions to the physics enterprise through outstanding research, leadership or service, or application of physics to science and technology. Each year, no more than 0.5% of the total APS membership is elected for Fellowship after a rigorous and competitive review process.  Read more

Congratulations to Prof. Gyu-Boong Jo, Prof. Jiannong Wang, and Prof. Jingdi Zhang (left to right) in the Department of Physics for important recognition of their research achievements. Associate Prof. Gyu-Boong Jo has been named an RGC Research Fellow by the Hong Kong Research Grant Committee (RGC) in recognition of his outstanding academic and research achievements. Prof. Jo’s selection for the Fellowship was made in support of his cutting-edge work titled “Emulating New Quantum Matter using an Atomic Quantum Simulator with Ultracold Atoms”, in which he controls an ensemble of atoms in a quantum simulator to tackle intractable problems in quantum science.  Chair Prof. Jiannong Wang, who currently serves as the Head of the Department, was elected Fellow of the Physical Society of Hong Kong. The citation for this prestigious honor recognized Prof. Wang “for her groundbreaking discoveries and exploration of semiconductor heterostructures and quantum materials”. Assistant Prof. Jingdi Zhang has been selected to be a recipient of a 2021 NSFC Excellent Young Scientists Scheme (Hong Kong and Macau) Award by the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC). This award recognizes Prof. Zhang as one of the most prominent and promising young scientists in Hong Kong and Macau for his innovative use of state-of-the-art time- and energy-resolved ultrafast terahertz spectroscopy to study ultrafast non-equilibrium dynamics in quantum materials by means of light-matter interaction. Read more

The Department of Physics sets Service Award for Undergraduate Physics Students to promote the spirit of service among the Physics students. Priority will be given to those who served their fellow Physics students, the Physics Department, or the community in the capacity of Physics students. The total amount of the award is up to HK$20,000 annually. We are pleased to announce that the 2019 Physics Service Award will be given to Wai Ki WONG. Wai Ki WONG (3rd year Physics UG student) 2019 Physics Service Award “For his outstanding service and leadership in the initiative of forming the new Physics Students’ Association.”   For the details of the award, please check the HKUST Physics UG Scholarship website: http://physics.ust.hk/scholarship/index.html Congratulations to our students for their achievements. Sincerely yours,   Prof. Penger Tong Head, Department of Physics The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Read more

 Prof Tao Liu was awarded 2016 School of Science Research Award.   Read more

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A research team at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), led by Prof Shengwang Du, Associate Professor of Department of Physics, succeeded in controlling photon’s shape, and reached a record photon loading efficiency of 87% into a cavity. The scientific breakthrough can be used to build nodes of a quantum network based on cavity quantum electrodynamics (CQED) and will help advance the development of quantum communication. The research findings were published recently in Physical Review Letters, one of the most prestigious journals in physics.   Half of the 2012 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to Serge Haroche for his work on CQED. A CQED-based quantum network might consist of flying photonic quantum bits, captured by cavity nodes that perform computations and send information. However, it is not easy to catch and hold a single photon in a cavity. When a photon is injected into a cavity, it can be reflected or transmitted. In previous experiments, reflection and transmission limited the photon loading efficiency to below 20%.   Prof Du and his team exploit the wave-particle nature of a single photon in a cavity between two mirrors—a perfectly reflecting one and an input or output mirror. Using an electro-optical modulator, they shape a photon wave function that, after each round trip in the cavity, interferes destructively with the reflected wave packet. This eliminates most reflections from the cavity while the photon is injected into the cavity.   Prof Du explained that they apply a “heralded” scheme, where a laser-cooled rubidium-atom cloud emits entangled photon pairs, and the detection of one photon heralds the presence of the other one being sent into the cavity. With an optimal exponential-growth photon waveform prepared by the modulator, Prof Du’s team demonstrates a record loading efficiency of 87%, which could advance the development of transmission of quantum information.   Prof Shengwang Du joined HKUST in 2008 and received the School of Science Research Award of HKUST in 2011. He graduated from Nanjing University and obtained a master’s degree in Physics from Peking University. He also received a master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and a PhD in Physics from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He was a Postdoctoral Scholar at Stanford University before joining HKUST. Read more

Prof Tianshou Zhao, Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of Center for Sustainable Energy Technology, and Prof Qian Zhang, Professor of Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) were recognized with the most prestigious awards in science and technology in China – State Natural Science Award (Second Class) bestowed by the State Council of the People’s Republic of China. Another research project “Discovery and investigation of novel magnetocaloric effect materials” by Prof Xixiang Zhang, a former professor and now an Adjunct Professor at HKUST’s Physics Department, and the research team from the Institute of Physics Chinese Academy of Sciences also won the State Natural Science Award (Second Class).   The State Science and Technology Awards (SSTAs) are China’s most prestigious honor in science and technology. They are conferred by the State Council of the People’s Republic of China on outstanding individuals and institutions for their significant contributions to the development of science and technology. The State Natural Science Award is one of the categories under SSTAs.   As a world-class research university, HKUST is committed to scientific and technological advancement in various disciplines. With major breakthroughs in a wide range of scientific pursuits, the award demonstrates HKUST faculty’s breadth of research talents and their outstanding performances.       “Investigations of multi-scale and multi-physics field coupled fluid flow and heat/mass transfer in complex systems” by Prof Tianshou Zhao   Through the Overseas Outstanding Scholars Project of National Natural Science Foundation of China and other collaborative projects, Prof Tianshou Zhao and researchers from the School of Energy and Power Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, have conducted collaborative research over the past decade. By the unique research methodology and strategy with integration of experimental observations, theoretical investigations, and computational modeling, the team made significant contributions in the field of heat/mass transfer in complex systems. The main breakthrough in this project is the construction of a framework that describes multi-scale and multi-physics field coupled fluid flow and heat/mass transfer processes by creating and using microscopic, mesoscopic and macroscopic theoretical and numerical approaches. Multi-scale and multi-physics field coupled fluid flow and heat/mass transfer problems are frequently encountered in many complex practical systems including energy, power, chemical, environmental, and biomedical processes and systems. The outcome resulting from the project is particularly important in improving the energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions of energy conversion systems.       “Models for Joint Wireless Multimedia Communication and Performance Optimization” by Prof Qian Zhang   Prof Zhang and her partners from the Tsinghua University conducted collaborative research from 1998 to 2008. Starting from the fundamental nature of the wireless multimedia communication, the team revealed the interaction between the structured nature of multimedia information and the dynamic characteristics of the error distribution in wireless networks, established the modeling methodology and performance evaluation theory for multimedia processing and joint optimization in wireless network, made significant contributions to the development of the basic theory for wireless multimedia communication. The project made a major breakthrough in efficient video communications under the discontinuous transmission conditions, and effectively increasing bandwidth efficiency. The outcome resulting from the project is particularly useful for the design of future wireless video, mobile multimedia systems, as well as next-generation wireless networks. Read more

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) joins hands with a total of 21 secondary schools to launch a Pilot Scheme for the first Secondary Schools-University Dual Program in Hong Kong to nurture gifted secondary students in science and mathematics. The participating students can taste university study mode and campus life, as well as earn university credits at their early age.   HKUST is committed to nurturing gifted students in concerted efforts. Sharing a common vision, HKUST forges partnerships with the seed schools to provide an innovative study pathway for gifted students in science and mathematics. The pilot program aims at creating a win-win-win situation: HKUST can identify and groom the gifted students at their early age to make the most of their abilities. Gifted students can taste the university study mode, share their learning experience and academic knowledge with their secondary schoolmates to promote a learning atmosphere which could raise the school’s overall performance in science and mathematics. Gifted students can get a head start to acquire frontier knowledge, identify areas of interest and personal aspiration.   The three-level program offers courses covering the areas of biology, chemistry, mathematics and physics. HKUST will select students nominated by secondary school principals to enter Level 1 at which gifted students will experience an accelerated study in courses at secondary school level. Students with excellent performance will be promoted to Level 2, the introductory university level courses. Outstanding students will then be admitted to Level 3 at which they will take the regular HKUST courses together with university students and have the opportunities to conduct research guided by HKUST renowned professors. If the student joins HKUST as an undergraduate student in the future, the university credits earned can be counted towards his or her studies as part of the University’s graduation requirement.   Prof Tai-kai Ng, Director of Center for the Development of the Gifted and Talented, said: “It is a common practice in overseas countries that gifted students are not limited to studying at secondary schools, but could also select some suitable courses of interests at university simultaneously. HKUST introduces the first systematic approach to encourage this study mode in Hong Kong, gifted students could receive a more holistic education and campus life in secondary schools, and only devote part of time at HKUST studying subjects of their interest, early taste the university study mode and campus life, deeper learning of frontier knowledge, which could bring their talent into full play.”   Rev. Bro. Steve Hogan, Principal of La Salle College, applauded this initiative. “It is our pleasure to join this pilot scheme and hope our students could perform exceptionally.” Mr Wai-chiu Chan, Vice Principal of Our Lady of the Rosary College, added: “We hope to help students to identify their interest in the fields of science and mathematics. Through the program, students could early taste the advanced level courses which could enhance their analytical skills and widen their thinking perspectives.”   The nomination for this Pilot Scheme for Secondary Schools-University Dual Program will start in early September. A briefing session will be held on 17 September to introduce more details about the program. Level 1 courses will be commenced in October while Level 2 courses will be offered in summer 2012. HKUST targets to invite all secondary schools in Hong Kong to join this program in the future.     Program led by: Prof Tai-kai Ng Director of Center for the Development of the Gifted and Talented Tel：2358 7477 Email: phtai@ust.hk     Center for the Development of the Gifted and Talented: Mr Jim Chan Tel: 3521 0862 Email: ssschan@ust.hk   Miss Shirley Kwok Tel: 2358 5086 Email: shirleyk@ust.hk Read more