XUE QIKUN

Physicist Xue Qikun has won the 2020 Fritz London Memorial Prize, along with Frank Steglich from Germany and Valerii Vinokur from the U.S., the prize committee announced. Xue is the first Chinese scientist to receive the international award that recognizes scientists who have made outstanding contributions in the field of low-temperature physics.

The 57-year-old, who heads the Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences, won the honor for pioneering contributions to the experimental discovery of quantum anomalous Hall effect. The Hall effect, discovered by Edwin Hall in 1879, is the production of a voltage difference across an electrical conductor. Xue's contribution will help accelerate the development of low power-consuming electronics.

Xue is also vice president of the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing. His research team won China's State Natural Science Award in 2019 for quantum discovery. He became an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2005.

The prize, awarded every three years, is recognized as the highest honor in its field. Since its establishment in 1957, more than 50 physicists have received it.