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NEWS

News

News

Recent news, achievements, awards, publications and announcements from the Department of Physics.

105 news items

Ph.D. students Xiyuan Li (right) and Feiyu Quan (left) have received Best Talk Awards at the 2026 China Symposium on Molecular Clouds and Star Formation, recognizing the excellence of their research presentations. [Click to learn more about the symposium]

19 Aug 2026

Prof. Qisi Wang has been awarded the United College Dr. and Mrs. Joseph W. N. Cheung Research Excellence Award 2026

31 Jul 2026

A team of four undergraduate students (from left to right: Miss HE Qirui, Mr. HUA Yongxin, Mr. LI Sze Tung, Miss LI Yiwei), won the PLANCKS Hong Kong Preliminary and were subsequently selected to represent Hong Kong at the PLANCKS 2026 Final at Eindhoven, the Netherlands.

21 Jul 2026

Prof. LIU Renbao elected Fellow of American Physical Society (2025)

17 Jul 2026

Prof. Chen Hu has been awarded the 1+1+1 CUHK-CUHK(SZ)-GDST Joint Collaboration Fund 2026 (General R&D Projects) to support his project “Novel quantum materials enabling high-efficiency superconducting devices”.

10 Jul 2026

Dr. Ze Wu has been awarded funding under the Hong Kong Research Grants Council’s Junior Research Fellow Scheme.

20 Jun 2026

Prof. Hua-bai Li has been awarded the funding by the RGC Overseas Research Fellowship Scheme (ORFS), highlighting his outstanding achievement in scientific research innovation and talent cultivation.

11 Jun 2026

Mr. Alvin Chun Man Law (right), an undergraduate student, won the Third Runner‑up Award and the Audience Choice Award (Science, Engineering and Medicine) at the CUHK Capstone Project Presentation Competition 2026.

25 Apr 2026

Prof. Yangqian Yan has been selected for the Chung Chi College General Education Outstanding Teaching Award 2025.

16 Apr 2026

Dr. Kenny Yip has been selected for the Faculty Exemplary Teaching Award 2025.

16 Apr 2026

Prof. Zhengcheng Gu has been selected for the 2025 OCPA Achievement in Asia Award (Robert T. Poe Prize).

28 Jan 2026

The scientific research project, “Golden Air 黃金之風”, by a student research team from Stewards Pooi Kei College has won the Merit Award (Science Laboratory Secondary School) in the 7th Greater Bay Area STEAM Excellence Award 2025 (HKSAR). The project received help from Prof. Jianfang WANG’s group.

16 Oct 2025

Dr. Weitao Lyu received NSFC Young Scientists Fund 2025 to support his project “THz Astronomical Polarimeter at Low Temperature”.

02 Sep 2025

Dr. Matteo LULLI has been selected for the Young Scientist Award at the 34th International Conference on Discrete Simulations of Fluid Dynamics.

17 Jul 2025

Prof. Haoran Xue has been awarded the CUHK Young Researcher Award 2024.

16 Jul 2025

Prof. Xinhui Lu has been awarded the CUHK Research Excellence Award 2024-25.

30 Jun 2025

Prof. Quan Li has been awarded the CUHK Outstanding Research Impact Award 2024-25

30 Jun 2025

Mr. Jianhao Wu (MPhil student) has been awarded the Third Prize on “Mathematics and Physics / Mechanics and Control Systems” track for the project “Save the small scale crisis in Milky Way with a blue tilted early universe model” in the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition 2025.

19 Jun 2025

Dr. Shiu-sing Tong has been awarded the Vice-Chancellor Exemplary Teaching Award 2024.

17 Jun 2025

Prof. Xinhui Lu is awarded the Silver Medal for the project “GINDeX: Grazing – incidence Non – destructive X -ray testing system” at the 50th International Exhibition of Inventions Geneva (IEIG 2025).

17 Apr 2025

Dr. Kenny L. S. Yip has been awarded the CC College General Education Outstanding Teaching Award 2024-25.

14 Apr 2025

Dr. Shiu-sing Tong (on the left) has been awarded the Faculty Exemplary Teaching Award 2024 on 15 Feb 2025.

22 Mar 2025

Prof. Yilin Wu and Prof. Renbin Yan are awarded funding from the “National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars”, the highest level of young research talent development program under the foundation.

03 Jan 2025

Prof. Dajun Wang elected Fellow of American Physical Society.

19 Oct 2024

CUHK Vice-Chancellor Early Career Professorship Scheme welcomes applications from scholars and scientists in any discipline. Candidates with research works related to the mentioned research areas, even though loosely related, are very welcome to apply.

12 Aug 2024

Prof. Xinhui Lu has been awarded the title of “RGC Research Fellow” under the 2024-25 Research Grants Council (RGC) Research Fellow Scheme in recognition of her distinguished research achievements.

11 Jul 2024

Our MSc student Mr. Pak Gei Yeung (left) obtained a championship in the Hong Kong Electronics Project Competition 2024 (Tertiary Education Category). The awarded project title is “Unclonable electronic device for authentication of product and anti-counterfeit”.

17 Jun 2024

Our research teams led by Prof. Quan Li, Prof. Daniel Ong and Prof. Lei Xu have been recognized and honoured with three medals at the 49th International Exhibition of Inventions Geneva!

23 Apr 2024

Dr. Marco Y. H. Lai has been awarded the Faculty Exemplary Teaching Award 2023

23 Apr 2024

Prof. Xinhui Lu and Prof. Luis Flores Castillo have been awarded the Departmental Teaching Award 2023.

12 Apr 2024

Prof. Yilin Wu’s team discovers new mechanism for spontaneous large-scale pattern formation in living matter. This study has recently been published in the scientific journal Nature .

27 Mar 2024

Prof. Kenny C. Y. Ng has been awarded RMB2 million research funding from the Excellent Young Scientists Fund (Hong Kong and Macao) 2023, to support his research in Hong Kong for a maximum of three years.

27 Sep 2023

Prof. Renbao Liu has been awarded the appointment of “Choh-Ming Li Professor of Physics” for a term of 5 years, in recognition of his outstanding academic achievements.

15 Aug 2023

The research team led by Professor Liu Renbao has been awarded a grant of more than HK$7 million to carry out research on “Diamond-based Multi-modal Quantum Sensing of Nanomagnetism”

20 Jul 2023

Prof. Yilin Wu has been awarded the Xplorer Prize 2023 (from the Tencent Foundation) in the field of advanced interdisciplinary studies

20 Jul 2023

Prof. Zhengcheng Gu selected as the RGC Research Fellow 2023/24 and obtained ~HK$5 million in sponsorship of the fellowship.

19 Jul 2023

Mr. LAI Lok Kan (Physics Year 3) has been awarded the HSBC Hong Kong Scholarship 2022/23.

18 Jul 2023

Mr. LAI Lok Kan (Physics Year 3) has been awarded the Innovation and Technology Scholarship 2023.

14 Jun 2023

中大超算隊（包括物理系本科生陳凱文、盧若晞和戴傳禧）於第十屆ASC世界大學生超級計算機競賽的現場競賽中獲得超級團隊獎、及於綫上競賽中獲得冠軍和應用創新獎。競賽共有全球300餘支高校代表隊報名參加，經過預賽選拔有24支隊伍晋級總决賽，主要比拼AI語言大模型等前沿科學研究應用。

15 May 2023

Discovery: Decoding Zeeman measurements, the holy grail of cloud B-field observations

25 Apr 2023

Orientation-Dependent Interaction between the Magnetic Plasmons in Gold Nanocups and the Excitons in WS

13 Apr 2023

Accretion-induced Collapse of Dark Matter-admixed Rotating White Dwarfs: Dynamics and Gravitational-wave Signals

06 Apr 2023

Expansion dynamics of a shell-shaped Bose-Einstein condensate

03 Apr 2023

Discovery: Swimming bacteria stay away from solid walls in polymeric environments

28 Mar 2023

Discovery: A new form of active matter – living active solids – shows autonomous waves and global motion

28 Mar 2023

Discovery: Nodeless Superconductivity with and without Time Reversal Symmetry Breaking

22 Feb 2023

Prof. Swee Kuan Goh has been selected for the Science Faculty Young Researcher Award 2021.

21 Feb 2023

Dr. Jingren Zhou, PhD in Physics, has been selected for the Science Faculty Postgraduate Research Output Award 2021.

21 Feb 2023

Prof. Lei Xu’s team takes magic of invisibility cloak and creates a mega device – potential applications span novel cell culture and drug delivery. The findings have been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)

01 Feb 2023

Prof. Xinhui Lu received the CRF 2022/23 Young Collaboration Research Grant (YCRG) to support her project “Fundamental-studies-guided growing of high-quality, mechanically stable, reduced-dimensional perovskites for scalable flexible optoelectronic devices”.

30 Jan 2023

Prof. Renbao Liu received the NSFC/RGC Collaborative Research Scheme fund to support his project “Superradiant time-crystal maser and applications in quantum metrology”.

30 Jan 2023

Prof. Renbao Liu selected as 2022 New Cornerstone Investigator by Tencent. The New Cornerstone Investigator grant will support Prof. Liu to establish a theory of quantum many-body lasers.

18 Jan 2023

Prof. Yilin Wu’s team discovers a new surprising form of bacterial teamwork that builds “acterial canals” to transport materials over long distances. The findings have been published in eLife

22 Dec 2022

Prof. Quan Li has been selected for the Croucher Senior Research Fellowships 2023-2024, for her excellent research achievements.

09 Dec 2022

Mr. Billy K. K. Lee (MPhil in PHY) et al. published an article “An exploration of the properties of cluster profiles for the thermal and kinetic Sunyaev–Zel’dovich effects” in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

07 Nov 2022

Professors Otto Hannuksela, Tjonnie Li and Ren-Bao Liu have received the China Top Cited Paper Awards by the Institute of Physics (IOP) Publishing for their research papers. IOP Publishing selected papers from across the entire IOP Publishing journal portfolio within the past three years (2019-21) and recognized those were the top one per cent of most cited papers in different areas.

02 Nov 2022

Prof. Yangqian Yan received the NSFC Young Scientists Fund 2022 to support his project “Equation of state and thermodynamic properties of the unitary Fermi gas”.

06 Oct 2022

Prof. Zheng-Cheng Gu et al. published an article “Emergence of Gapless Quantum Spin Liquid from Deconfined Quantum Critical Point” in Physical Review X.

20 Sep 2022

Prof. Ming Chung Chu has been awarded the appointment of “Choh-Ming Li Professor of Physics” for a term of 5 years, in recognition of his outstanding academic achievements.

25 Aug 2022

Faces of CUHK Science: Digging Deep to Discover New Destinations – YEUNG Chun Yat Frankie (PHY 2021, CCC)Faces of CUHK Science: Digging Deep to Discover New Destinations – YEUNG Chun Yat Frankie (PHY 2021, CCC)

17 Jun 2022

Mr. Joseph Gais (MPhil in PHY), Eungwang Seo (PhD student in PHY), Prof. Tjonnie G.F. Li et al. published an article “Inferring the Intermediate-mass Black Hole Number Density from Gravitational-wave Lensing Statistics” in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

09 Jun 2022

A Hong Kong team led by Prof. Ming Chung Chu contributed to the Daya Bay reactor neutrino experiment producing the most precise neutrino measurement ever.

09 Jun 2022

Mr. Junyu Lin (PhD student in PHY), Dr. Junyu He (PhD in PHY), Prof. Dajun Wang et al. published an article “Seconds-Scale Coherence on Nuclear Spin Transitions of Ultracold Polar Molecules in 3D Optical Lattices” in Physical Review Letters.

01 Jun 2022

Event Horizon Telescope (Dr. Po Kin Leung and Mr. Tin Lok Chan (Physics/Yr 4) are in the collaboration) reveals the first image of the black hole at the Milky Way’s heart.

26 May 2022

Mr. Jack Yat-long Kwok (Physics/Yr 4) has been selected for the 2022 Joseph Needham PhD Fellowship tenable at the University of Cambridge.

25 May 2022

Ms. Alena Boyko (Physics/Yr 4) was awarded the Endeavour Merit Award 2020/21 and Hong Kong, China – Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Scholarship by the Education Bureau.V

10 May 2022

Prof. Ren-Bao Liu, Prof. Quan Li et al. published an article “Revealing Capillarity in AFM Indentation of Cells by NanodiamondBased Nonlocal Deformation Sensing” in Nano Letters.

04 May 2022

Prof. Zhengcheng Gu has been selected for the CUHK Research Excellence Award 2021-22.

03 May 2022

Prof. Renbao Liu has been selected for the RGC Senior Research Fellow Scheme 2022/23 and received grant to support his project “Quantum Nonlinear Spectroscopy – A New Paradigm of Quantum Sensing”.

02 May 2022

Mr. Ho Yeuk Cheung (PHY 2021, CMC) received the Croucher Scholarship 2022-23.

01 May 2022

Mr. Ken K. Y. Ng (PHY 2017, CCC) received the Croucher Scholarship 2022-23. [Photo caption: Ken (right) and his advisor from his thesis defense]

20 Apr 2022

Mr. Leif Lui (Physics/Yr 2) received the Innovation and Technology Scholarship 2022.

17 Apr 2022

Mr. Shun-Sun Luk (MPhil in PHY), Prof. Hua-bai Li et al. published an article “Velocity Anisotropy in Self-gravitating Molecular Clouds. II. Observation” in The Astrophysical Journal.

04 Apr 2022

Ms. Yao Lu (PhD student in MSE), Ms. Shiu Hei Lam (MPhil in PHY), Prof. Jianfang Wang et al. published an article “All-State Switching of the Mie Resonance of Conductive Polyaniline Nanospheres” in Nano Letters.

27 Jan 2022

Prof. Renbin YAN’s team releases largest-ever collection of 3D maps of nearby galaxies and the largest-ever stellar spectral library.

17 Jan 2022

Prof. Renbao Liu was selected for the 2022 Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics, for his outstanding contributions to the field.

30 Dec 2021

Mr. Yat To Tang (MPhil student in PHY) and Dr. Lap Ming Lin published an article “Neutron star oscillations in pseudo-Newtonian gravity” in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

20 Dec 2021

The scientific research project, “Gold Nanorod Time Temperature Indicator”, by three students from Hong Kong Baptist University Affiliated School Wong Kam Fai Secondary and Primary School has been shortlisted as one of the “Top 120 Projects” in the Hong Kong Science Fair 2021-22 and won the Merit Award (Senior Secondary Division). The project received help from Prof. Jianfang WANG’s group.

17 Dec 2021

Prof. Emily S. C. Ching has been selected for the Vice-Chancellor’s Exemplary Teaching Award 2021.

17 Dec 2021

The scientific research project, “GoldIn”, by three students from Hong Kong Baptist University Affiliated School Wong Kam Fai Secondary and Primary School has awarded the First Prize of the 24th Hong Kong Youth Science and Technology Innovation Competition in the Secondary School Research and Invention (Senior Secondary) Biology and Health category. The project received help from Prof. Jianfang WANG’s group.

15 Dec 2021

Dr. Billy K. K. Lee, Prof. Ming Chung Chu and Dr. Lap Ming Lin published an article “Could the GW190814 Secondary Component Be a Bosonic Dark Matter Admixed Compact Star?” in Astrophysical Journal.

03 Dec 2021

Science through the Lens – Mr. Tse Shing Him Samuel (Physics/Yr 2)

20 Nov 2021

Prof. Emily S. C. Ching has been selected for the Faculty Exemplary Teaching Award 2021.

17 Nov 2021

Dr. Lap Ming Lin and Prof. Daniel Ong have been selected for the Physics Department Teaching Award 2021 for their outstanding contributions to teaching in 2021.

15 Nov 2021

Prof. Lei Xu’s group discovers a novel method to adjust the elasticity of material for achieving smart elastic metamaterials.

04 Nov 2021

Dr. Jianyu Xie (PhD in MSE), Prof. Kwing To Lai, Prof. Swee K. Goh et al. published an article “Fragile pressure-induced magnetism in FeSe superconductors with a thickness reduction” in Nano Letters.

29 Oct 2021

Mr. Xinxin Xia (PhD student in MSE), Dr. Tsz-Ki Lau (PhD in PHY), Prof. Xinhui Lu et al. published an article “Uncovering the out-of-plane nanomorphology of organic photovoltaic bulk heterojunction by GTSAXS” in Nature Communications.

28 Oct 2021

Prof. Renbao Liu was elected as a Fellow Member of Optica for 2022, for original contributions to nonlinear and quantum optics and their applications in quantum information technologies.

18 Oct 2021

Prof. Renbao Liu was elected as Fellow of Institute of Physics (UK), 2021.

17 Oct 2021

Dr. Haoyuan Bai (PhD in MSE), Ms. Shiu Hei Lam (MPhil in PHY), Prof. Jianfang Wang et al. published an article “A Schottky-Barrier-Free Plasmonic Semiconductor Photocatalyst for Nitrogen Fixation in a “One-Stone-Two-Birds” Manner” in Advanced Materials.

16 Oct 2021

Dr. Jianhua Yang (PhD in MSE), Dr. Jiapeng Zheng (PhD in MSE), Prof. Jianfang Wang et al. published an article “Plasmon-Enhanced, Self-Traced Nanomotors on the Surface of Silicon” in Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

18 Sep 2021

Dr. Patrick C.K. Cheong (PhD in PHY), Mr. Alan T.L. Lam (MPhil in PHY), Prof. Tjonnie G.F. Li et al. published an article “Gmunu: paralleled, grid-adaptive, general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamics in curvilinear geometries in dynamical space-time” in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

16 Sep 2021

Prof. Xinhui Lu received China’s Excellent Young Scientists Fund 2021 which supports her research project on “X-ray scattering Based Microstructure Studies of Photovoltaic Materials”.

22 Aug 2021

Prof. Xinhui Lu published an article “Unveiling the crystalline packing of Y6 in thin films by thermally induced “backbone-on” orientation”.

13 Jul 2021

Miss Sonja On To Choi (Year 4 student) was awarded the Innovation and Technology Scholarship 2021.

23 Jun 2021

Prof. Keqing Xia was elected as the Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences 2021.

17 Jun 2021

Prof. Jianfang Wang et al. published an article “How to Utilize Excited Plasmon Energy Efficiently” in ACS Nano.

17 Jun 2021

Prof. Jianfang Wang received the ANR/RGC Joint Research Scheme grant to support his project “Electrically-Excited Chiral Plasmonic Nano Cavities”

17 May 2021

Dr. Qin Minchao, PhD in Materials Science and Engineering, has been selected for the CUHK Young Scholars Thesis Award 2020

07 Apr 2021

Physics alumnus, Mr. HO Chun Yan received Outstanding Alumni Service Award (Career Development) 2021 from Science Faculty

05 Apr 2021

An interview with physics alumnus: Mr. SHIU Man Lai, Professor of University of Wisconsin-Madison (from CU Alumni Magazine No. 107)

01 Apr 2021

Mr. Junyu Lin (PhD student in PHY), Dr. Junyu He (PhD in PHY), Prof. Dajun Wang et al. published an article “Probing Photoinduced Two-Body Loss of Ultracold Nonreactive Bosonic

02 Mar 2021

An international team of scientists including our physics student discovered the “Heaviest Black Hole Collision” might be a Boson star merger.

25 Feb 2021

Prof. Quan Li was selected for Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in April 2021.

17 Feb 2021

We discovered new route to active matter self-organisation, provides new directions on fabricating self-driven devices and microbial physiology.

04 Feb 2021