Huang Kun

Huang Kun a Chinese physicist of the twentieth century (1919-2005) who is regarded as the founder of solid-state physics and semiconductor research in China and who made important contributions to the theory of solids and to the development of science and technology in his country.

Early Life and Education

Huang Kun was born on 2 September 1919 in Beijing, though his family came from Zhejiang province. He grew up during a period of national crisis and was educated in schools that struggled to maintain their standards amid the upheaval of the times. He showed a strong aptitude for the physical sciences and entered Yenching University, where he studied physics.

He graduated in 1941 and then worked as a teacher and research assistant, but his ambition was to pursue advanced study. In 1944 he travelled to Britain and entered the University of Bristol, one of the leading centres of solid-state physics, where he worked under Nevill Mott, a future Nobel laureate and a founder of the modern theory of solids.

He completed his doctorate at Bristol in 1948 with a study of the theory of metals and alloys. His research concerned the behaviour of electrons in solids and the factors that determine whether a material conducts electricity or not, questions that were central to the physics of the day and to the technologies that would grow from it.

Theory of Solids and Semiconductors

Huang Kun's doctoral and early postwar research dealt with the electronic structure of metals and with the theory of the solid state. He worked on the effect of impurities and disorder on the electrical properties of materials, and he developed theoretical methods for calculating the behaviour of electrons in crystals, work that contributed to the emerging understanding of semiconductors.

He studied the phenomenon of the colour centres in crystals and the interaction of light with defects, and he analysed the mechanisms by which electrons are scattered in a solid lattice. These studies belonged to the broad effort, then transforming physics, to understand why some materials conduct and others insulate and how the difference could be controlled.

His papers on the theory of the solid state were published in the leading journals and were recognised for their clarity and rigour. He became known as a physicist of broad culture and penetrating judgement, and his theoretical work formed the basis for the experimental and applied research he would later direct in China.

Building the Field in China

Huang Kun returned to China in 1951 and joined the faculty of Peking University, where he founded the study of solid-state and semiconductor physics. He established a laboratory and a research group, wrote textbooks and trained students, and he argued that semiconductors would become the foundation of a modern electronics industry.

At a time when the field was barely recognised in the country, he organised courses, seminars and research projects that created a community of specialists. He took part in the national plan for the development of science and technology of 1956, in which he pressed for the inclusion of semiconductor research as a priority for the country's industrial future.

He directed research on the physics of semiconductors, on the growth of crystals and on the theory of the electronic properties of materials, and he helped to establish the institutions that carried the work forward. The laboratory he built became the birthplace of Chinese semiconductor science and the training ground for its first generation of researchers.

Lasers, Administration and Later Career

In the 1960s Huang Kun extended his interests to the new field of lasers and to the interaction of light with matter. He supported the development of laser research and of the physics of the solid state that underpinned it, and he took part in the organisation of the national programme in these areas.

He held senior positions in the Chinese Academy of Sciences and in its institutes of physics, and he served as director of a research institute devoted to semiconductors. He was a member of the presidium of the academy and took part in the formulation of national science policy, arguing for basic research and for the training of scientists.

He was also active in the international scientific community, attending conferences and maintaining exchanges with physicists abroad. In his later years he wrote and lectured on the history and philosophy of physics and on the responsibilities of the scientist, and he remained a respected voice in the discussion of how science should be organised.

Influence and Legacy

Huang Kun is honoured as the founder of solid-state physics and semiconductor research in China. The field he established grew into a central part of Chinese science and industry, and the students he trained became leaders of research in universities and institutes throughout the country.

He was elected to the Chinese Academy of Sciences and to a number of foreign academies, and he received the highest state prize for science and technology. His textbooks on the physics of solids were used for decades and shaped the education of generations of Chinese physicists, and his theoretical papers remain part of the record of the field.

He died on 6 July 2005 in Beijing at the age of eighty-five. His career demonstrated the value of a broad foundation in fundamental theory for the solution of practical problems, and he is remembered as the physicist who gave China a presence in one of the most consequential areas of modern science.

See also

• Zhou Guangzhao
• Semiconductor
• Solid-state physics
• Peking University