On August 16^th, eight laureates of the Future Science Prize were announced. Academician CHEN Xianhui from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) won the Physical Science Prize for his major breakthroughs in the discovery of high-temperature superconducting materials and systematic advancements in elevating the transition temperature.

Superconductivity, offers immense potential for applications in energy transmission, transportation, computation and communication due to its unique properties of conducting electric current with zero resistance and complete diamagnetism in quantum materials. Traditional superconducting materials have extremely low transition temperatures (<-230 °C). The discovery of high transition temperature (Tc) superconducting materials has significantly broadened the application of superconductivity, unveiling fundamental physical mechanisms. Two primary families of high Tc materials are cupric oxide superconductors and Iron-based superconductors. Pioneering in iron-based superconductors, academician CHEN Xianhui and his research group successfully raised the transition temperature above the McMillan limit, proving the unconventional nature of iron-based superconductors. Besides raising the transition temperature, CHEN Xianhui and his team also conducted systematic research on the physical mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity in the past decades, greatly propelling the development of high-temperature superconductivity in the past decades.

Academician CHEN Xianhui.(image from USTC)

The Future Science Prize is a science prize established in 2016 by a group of Chinese scientists and entrepreneurs. It focuses on original basic scientific research and rewards chinese scientists who have made outstanding achievements, expecting to attract more young people to pursue science as their own career.

(Written by SHI Yutian, edited by ZHANG Yihang, USTC News Center)