The Buckley Prize, the highest international award in the field of condensed matter physics.
Not long ago, Xue Qikun, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, professor of Tsinghua University, and president of Southern University of Science and Technology, won the 2023 Buckley Award, becoming the first Chinese recipient of the award since it was awarded in 1953.
First Prize of the State Natural Science Award, Philez London Prize, Future Science Award; He became a professor at the age of 35, became one of the youngest academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences at the age of 42, and overcame the difficult ...... of the quantum world at the age of 50However, compared with his glorious resume, Xue Qikun's life and scientific research path is not smooth.
Science is science, and we must not be sloppy in the slightest, and the cultivation of qualified personnel must also be gradual and gradual, without the slightest leap forward. In order to challenge international authority, doing scientific research requires a critical attitude and a firm direction. ”
Academician of the "7-11" of the leather solid
Skinny! Xue Qikun described himself in Mandarin with a strong Shandong accent.
He said that the children who came out of the Yimeng Mountains were not afraid of setbacks.
This young man from a mountain village in Mengyin County, Linyi City, Shandong Province, planted the seed of becoming a scientist in his heart when he was in elementary school. From the textbooks, he learned about Newton and Einstein, and realized that being a scientist can bring great benefits to society, and he longed to go out of the mountains and learn more skills.
The start of his dream was very smooth, he scored 99 points in physics out of 100 points in the college entrance examination, and was successfully admitted to the laser major of the Department of Optics of Shandong University. However, the setback of the graduate school entrance examination and the subsequent blow of studying for a doctorate made him "unexpected".
Xue Qikun has mentioned his postgraduate entrance examination experience on many occasions. After graduating from university, he took the postgraduate examination for the first time, scored 39 points in advanced mathematics, and failed. After graduating, he went to Qufu Normal University to teach, and was admitted to graduate school again, but failed again. It was not until 1987 that he was finally admitted to graduate school and entered the Institute of Physics of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, majoring in condensed matter physics.
The character of "Pi Shi" not only gives Xue Qikun a strong ability to resist blows, but also allows him to withstand the challenges on the road of scientific research.
After graduating with a master's degree, Xue Qikun chose to continue his doctoral studies. It just so happened that his supervisor, Mr. Lu Hua, got an opportunity to jointly train with the Institute of Metal Materials, Tohoku University, which is the oldest university-affiliated research institute in Japan. Here, Xue Qikun ushered in the most difficult moment in his life.
Mentor Toshio Sakurai's lab is known as the "7-Eleven Lab", and the requirements are very strict: work 6 days a week, come to the lab at 7 a.m., and do not leave before 11 p.m. Xue Qikun remembers those years vividly: "There are three things every day, eating, sleeping, and engaging in scientific research. Sometimes I was so sleepy that I could fall asleep sitting on the toilet. ”
In addition to the physical and perseverance tests, the language barrier is mental torture. Xue Qikun could hardly understand the instructions of the tutor, and when the tutor and his classmates were doing experiments together, he didn't even dare to touch them, so he could only watch them in a daze. Many students who went to Japan to study couldn't stand the torment and "escaped" back, and Xue Qikun, who was physically and mentally exhausted, was on the verge of collapse. He admits that this is the hardest time of personal growth, "I want to go home for seven or eight months of the year".
Once, Xue Qikun and his son who had just gone to school were **. The son said, "Dad, let me recite to you the text I just learned: 'I am Chinese, and I love my motherland......The voice of the childish child made Xue Qikun, who had left his hometown, excited, and a patriotic fire burned in his heart. He was determined to overcome the odds and persevere.
Xue Qikun was the first to arrive at the laboratory and the last to leave every day. A year and a half later, he made an important scientific breakthrough, the most important achievement of Tohoku University in Japan in nearly three decades. Xue Qikun finally felt that the hazy dream in the mind of his cattle herding baby in rural Shandong began to become a little more real. He also began to appreciate the beauty of doing scientific research, and when he collected wonderful data, he suddenly found that "I haven't smoked for three hours".
Xue Qikun began to make a name for himself in the international physics community.
In 1996, Xue Qikun was invited to give a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society, and his poor spoken English overwhelmed him. In order to ensure that nothing goes wrong, he wrote down every English word and sentence to be spoken, and simulated more than 80 times. When hearing the applause and praise, Xue Qikun felt "like drinking ice water when you are thirsty in summer, very comfortable".
After graduating with his Ph.D., he stayed with his supervisor, Toshio Sakurai, to work at the Institute of Metal Research, Tohoku University, Japan. But the official position abroad did not reassure him, "I have never been able to settle down, even if I go to buy furniture, I am not willing to buy too good." He always longed to come back and serve the motherland.
Finally, at the age of 36, the opportunity came. In 1998, with his outstanding research ability, he returned to China through the "Hundred Talents Program" of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and officially joined the Institute of Physics.
With his super hard-working ability and solid research ability, in just a few years, the "solid" Xue Qikun has won a number of important honors, including the China Youth Science and Technology Award, the second prize of the National Natural Science Award, and the Outstanding Scientific and Technological Achievement Award of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 2005, Xue Qikun went to work in the Department of Physics of Tsinghua University and was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in November. At that time, he had just passed the age of not being confused, and he was the youngest of those elected academicians.
After returning to China for many years, whether in the Chinese Academy of Sciences or Tsinghua University, Xue Qikun has always maintained a "7-11" routine and has been nicknamed "7-11" academician by teachers and students. Academician Zhu Bangfen, former head of the Department of Physics at Tsinghua University, recalled, "I once went on a business trip with him Kun, and when I returned to Beijing at 12 o'clock in the evening, he still insisted on going to the laboratory to have another look."
I can say that as long as I don't sleep, I'm working. Xue Qikun said with a smile.
Climb the steepest scientific peaks
For children in the mountains, climbing mountains is almost instinctive. On the way to climb the peak of science, Xue Qikun chose the steepest peak. A number of teachers and students who know Xue Qikun told reporters that he has an extraordinary spirit of challenge, and the greater the difficulty, the more real.
The "Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect", a scientific effect based on completely new physical principles, is known as the "jewel" in the crown of physics research.
What is the Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect? Before the interview, we crammed and read a lot of information about the quantum anomalous Hall effect, but we were still confused. I didn't expect Academician Xue Qikun to make it clear in a few words.
If you compare electrons to people, the movement of electrons in computer chips is irregular, just like people walking in a messy farmer's market, they will always take detours and touch people, they will heat up, and the efficiency is not high. The quantum Hall effect is a highway, and electrons can go in separate lanes and directions. Unfortunately, the quantum Hall effect requires a very strong magnetic field and is expensive, which hinders its real-life application. Xue Qikun said that the quantum anomalous Hall effect is different from the quantum Hall effect, which does not rely on a strong magnetic field and is generated by the spontaneous magnetization of the material itself, so it is much more convenient in application than the previously discovered quantum Hall effect. Since 1998, theoretical physicists have been proposing various schemes, but no progress has been made in experiments. The world's top research groups are trying to solve this problem.
In 2008, Chinese physicist Zhang Shousheng proposed the direction of experimenting with the quantum anomalous Hall effect in magnetic topological insulators. But finding the right material is a huge challenge, and whether and when the quantum anomalous Hall effect can be observed in this material is anyone's guess, and it's a project that will probably never be completed in a lifetime.
However, Xue Qikun chose to climb this mountain without hesitation.
The samples used by Xue Qikun's team for experiments were laid out with atoms layer by layer. The thickness of 5 nanometers is equivalent to 1/100,000 of a hair, and it is very difficult to prepare each one. Over the course of four years, they prepared more than 1,000 samples and experienced numerous failures. After each failure, Xue Qikun once again led the team to improve samples and innovate methods; Fail again, improve again, innovate again.
One night in October 2012, Xue Qikun received a text message from a student: "Mr. Xue, the quantum anomalous Hall effect has come out, waiting for detailed measurements." He suppressed the wild beating of his heart, and immediately called ** to confirm the situation again and again. He then quickly returned to the lab and immediately organized his team members to design several protocols and deploy the next experiment. The rigorous spirit of science told them that the results of one time do not speak for themselves, and that the experiment needs to be repeated many times with different samples.
After two months of intensive testing and continuous research, Xue Qikun's team finally tested the perfect experimental data. Xue Qikun recalled that on the day he arrived at the final figures, he brought two bottles of champagne with his team to celebrate the "miracle moment". This result was published in the American journal Science and has had an important impact on the international physics community.
The mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity is another problem that Xue's team wants to overcome. In 2012, Xue Qikun led a research team from the Department of Physics of Tsinghua University to discover the interfacial high-temperature superconductivity produced by the combination of a single layer of iron selenium and a strontium titanate substrate. This finding challenges the mainstream consensus.
At that time, there were indeed some doubts, and our team was not doing high-temperature superconductivity, there was no foundation in this area, and others also had some doubts about our qualifications. Xue Qikun recalled, "Fortunately, everyone persevered." ”
In the eyes of He Ke, deputy director of the Department of Physics at Tsinghua University and member of the quantum anomalous Hall effect team, Xue Qikun has a true love for science and a strong belief in serving the motherland: "Mr. Xue always encourages us to think about some big problems, walk in the forefront of science, and consider which problems can lead a new direction." ”
Because of the important scientific discovery of the quantum anomalous Hall effect, Xue Qikun ushered in the highlight moment of his life and won numerous awards.
In 2016, Xue Qikun won the first Future Science Award; In 2018, he won the first prize of the National Natural Science Award; In 2020, he won the Friez London Award; In 2023, he won the Barkley Award ......
Under the fame, Xue Qikun has his own insistence: as a scientist, he should pursue knowledge and the worship of science, rather than awards. "To challenge international authority, we need to be critical and firm in our own direction in order to continue our work. Xue Qikun said.
Let's "1+1>2".
In the eyes of the students, Xue Qikun is strict and benevolent, without the slightest arrogance.
To cultivate the scientific spirit of students, he is extremely strict and serious, and his requirements for students are almost harsh: to wash the beaker to the cleanest degree he thinks; After five or six years in the group, operating a large-scale physical experiment instrument is like riding a bicycle, and you can ride it with your eyes closed; Students can't write a report without a punctuation error.
Xue Qikun believes that the success of physical experiments is based on solid basic skills. "This has two advantages: one is that when there is a scientific research opportunity, you have enough technical level to strive for it; Second, on the basis of mastering a large number of experimental data, through careful analysis of data, looking for rules, and training scientific vision. ”
The other side of the strict teacher is the merciful teacher. When the experiment process is very difficult or slow, Xue Qikun will encourage the students and tell them that "you are very good".
He treats his students as if they were his own children. "We went to a meeting abroad, and Mr. Xue used his own money to give pocket money to the students. He couldn't keep things in his hands, and often when a student praised his things for being good, he gave them away on the spot. Wang Yayu, a professor at the Department of Physics at Tsinghua University and a member of the quantum anomalous Hall effect team, said.
He encouraged students to try to discover the joy of experimentation, "For example, if you learn to ride a bicycle, you just start learning and you don't feel a sense of accomplishment. When you learn how to ride a fast bike, it's fun." In Xue Qikun's view, experimentation is not a simple repetition, every step of it is changing, there are accidents, and new things appear.
Doing challenging experiments and being stressed out is the norm. As a mentor and elder, the first thing to do is to give spiritual encouragement. ”
In addition to strict requirements for basic skills, Xue Qikun also attaches great importance to cultivating students' ability to unite and cooperate. Every time he won an award, he "shrank back", pushing young people up, and also focusing on balancing everyone's opportunities. He made these new forces in the scientific community understand that scientific research cannot be done alone, everyone has their own role, and only by working closely together can we play the miracle effect of "1+1>2".
In the four years of overcoming the highland of quantum anomalous Hall effect, Xue Qikun often "soaked" in the laboratory with his team members, held group meetings every week to report the progress of experiments, and often organized basketball games, badminton games and other activities for cultural construction - a harmonious team environment makes collaborative innovation possible.
Dai Xi, a researcher at the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was very emotional: "There are thirty or forty participants in this study, and the whole team is like a series circuit. Take away any of the 'resistors' and the circuit won't work. Without such a good cooperation model and process, it is hard to imagine that we would have done this. ”
Xue Qikun views the construction of scientific research teams in this way: "Only a good scientific research team can give birth to first-class scientific research results and scientists. It's like a machine, it will only work well if every component is working to its fullest. ”
He always feels the heavy responsibility on his shoulders, "Science is science, we must not be sloppy, and the cultivation of talents must be gradual and gradual, without the slightest leap forward." ”
The more basic, the more cutting-edge
In November 2020, Xue Qikun was appointed president of Southern University of Science and Technology. In this experimental field, he showed a larger pattern and realm.
On his first day in office, he visited the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Engineering to investigate basic research.
The more basic, the more cutting-edgeXue Qikun believes that basic research is the source of the entire scientific system and the general organ of all technical problems. He took building a house as an example, "doing basic research is equivalent to laying a foundation, and doing '0 to 1' is to build the first floor." Strong support for basic research that can meet the major needs of the country and independent development can not only occupy the scientific highland, but also open up new application highlands and lead the future.
In Xue Qikun's view, paying too much attention to the "practical use" of scientific research will affect the development of basic scientific research and harm scientific research in the long run. Retaining talents for the country to do "useless" basic research, and making doing basic research as "as happy as making money" was the first task he set out to do when he was president. He lamented: "Basic research often takes a long time, and sometimes it may take a person's lifetime. You must have the spirit of being able to sit on a cold bench and endure loneliness. ”
As the president of SUSTech, Xue Qikun has carried out a series of reforms non-stop: adjusting the scientific research model and talent training mode, putting forward the "SUSTech 2035 question", creating the "three development strategies" of SUSTech, and creating a training mechanism of "major + general education", "college + department" and "science and education + industry and education".
As an innovative university with a strong reputation for science and engineering, SUSTech does its best to encourage innovation from 0 to 1: the PI system (academic leader system) ensures that each professor in the teaching and research sequence is the head of an independent research group, and has an independent laboratory and start-up funding, even if it is a fledgling postdoctoral fellow. In addition to abundant scientific research start-up funds, the scientific research mentor system also allows young scholars to obtain the guidance of academicians.
According to the data, in recent years, SUSTech has established more than 10 university-level scientific research institutions, and formed special platforms and team research models for key technologies and future technologies, which have laid a solid foundation for basic research.
In the interview, Xue Qikun repeatedly emphasized the importance of evaluation reform. "Some future-oriented basic research, although it seems 'useless' at the moment, may have infinite application prospects in the future. So, try to ask them as little as possible, 'What's the use of your research'. Xue Qikun believes that evaluation cannot be turned into a vulgar "ruler".
He took the mathematics discipline selected for the second round of "double first-class" construction universities and construction disciplines as an example, and the mathematics discipline is improving the assessment and reward mechanism, and considering a longer period of rolling assessment. "In this cycle, as long as the teaching task is finally completed, the teacher's scientific research results will not be assessed every year, and the final assessment and long-term employment will be considered after the expiration, so as to give teachers more space for free exploration. ”
In addition to the young people with the scientific research team, the college system of Southern University of Science and Technology has made Xue Qikun a life mentor for a group of undergraduates, which is a mutual selection system, and some undergraduates who are interested in scientific research can have in-depth exchanges with the big scientists in their hearts from the first year of admission.
To become a martial arts master, you must practice the basic skills. Xue Qikun emphasized that an important aspect of talent training is the cultivation of hands-on ability. For example, he said that most of SUSTech's undergraduates have to undergo academic training during their time at the university, and they join the laboratory to do scientific research like graduate students, cultivating their research ability and hands-on ability in advance, "We must rely on excellent professional teachers to lay a solid foundation for students."
Today's Xue Qikun is even busier.
It is necessary to pay attention to whether the scientific research direction of the young people in the team is deviated, and as the principal of the school, he should also be in charge of a lot of administrative work. As a top physicist in China, Xue Qikun is still on the road of chasing his dreams. He revealed that the team is still working in two directions: one is the research on quantum anomalous Hall effect and topological insulators, and the other is the research on the mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity. "The mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity is the problem of the century in condensed matter physics, and if we unravel the mystery, it will be possible to design high-temperature superconducting materials to achieve superconductivity at room temperature or even higher, which will be an important contribution to all mankind. Xue Qikun is full of expectations.
In the year of the sixtieth year, this scientist who came out of the Yimeng Mountains still enjoys the happiness brought by chasing his dream of science.
China Education Daily, 2024-01-11, 4th edition
Author: Reporter Yu Zhen Dong Lu Wanlong.