By Li Panpan

(JW Insights) Oct 26 -- Chinese scientist Xue Qikun won the 2024 Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Physics Prize, an international award recognizing outstanding contributions to condensed matter physics, on October 24, according to the American Physical Society.

This marks the first time a Chinese scientist has won the top prize in condensed matter physics since the award was founded in 1953.

Xue, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Ashvin Vishwanath, a professor at Harvard University, won the award together for their pioneering theoretical and experimental studies on the collective electronic properties of materials that reflect topological aspects of their band structure, reported Xinhua on October 24.

The award is acknowledged as the highest international honor in condensed matter physics.

Xue and his team were the first to observe the quantum anomalous Hall effect in 2012, and they published their findings in the journal Science in 2013.

Born in 1962 in eastern China’s Shandong Province, he is a professor at Tsinghua University and president of the Southern University of Science and Technology.