Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

Huang Kun (1919.9.2-2005.7.6) was a solid-state physics and semiconductor physicist. A native of Jiaxing, Zhejiang, born in Beijing. Graduated from Yenching University in 1941. In 1948, he received a doctorate from the University of Bristol, UK. In 1955, he was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (member of the academic department). In 1980, he was elected as a foreign academician of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1985, he was elected as an academician of the Third World Academy of Sciences. Researcher and Honorary Director of the Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is an internationally renowned Chinese physicist, educator, pioneer of solid state physics in China, and founder of China's semiconductor technology. He is mainly engaged in research on solid state physics theory, semiconductor physics and other aspects and has achieved a number of international-level results. He is one of the pioneers of semiconductor physics research in China. In the 1950s, he and his collaborators first proposed the quantum theory of multi-phonon radiation and non-radiative transitions, namely the "Huang-Pekar theory"; first proposed the coupling vibration mode of phonons and electromagnetic waves in crystals and related basic equations (known as Huang equation). In the 1940s, the theory that impurity defects in solids caused diffuse scattering of X-rays (known as yellow scattering) was first proposed. The equivalence of the adiabatic approximation of radiationless transitions and the static coupling theory is proved and some fundamental issues in this area are clarified. Won the 2001 National Highest Science and Technology Award.

Character Introduction

Huang Kun (September 2, 1919 - July 6, 2005). Internationally renowned Chinese physicist, educator, pioneer of solid state physics in China, and founder of China's semiconductor technology. Huang Kun was born in Beijing in September 1919. He graduated from Yenching University in 1941 and from the Institute of Science of Peking University at Southwest Associated University in 1944 with a master's degree. In 1947, he received a doctorate from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. After receiving his doctorate, Huang Kun worked in the Department of Physics of the University of Edinburgh and the Department of Theoretical Physics of the University of Liverpool in the UK. In 1951, Huang Kun returned to Peking University as a professor in the Department of Physics. After 1977, he served as the director of the Institute of Semiconductors of the Chinese Academy of Sciences until his retirement. In his early years, Huang Kun worked on research with the famous physicist and Nobel Prize winner Professor Born at the University of Edinburgh, and co-authored the book "Lattice Dynamics" which is well-known in the solid state physics community. In 1956, while Huang Kun was a professor in the Department of Physics of Peking University, he participated in the establishment of China's first semiconductor physics major and trained the first batch of talents for China's information industry. While teaching at Peking University, Huang Kun also presided over the creation of the undergraduate teaching system and authored the textbook "Solid State Physics", which enjoyed a high reputation. After 1977, under the intervention of Deng Xiaoping, Huang Kun became the director of the Institute of Semiconductors of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 2001, Huang Kun and his Peking University alumnus Wang Xuan won the country's highest science and technology award that year. On July 6, 2005, at 16:18, Huang Kun passed away in Beijing at the age of 86. Huang Kun's main honors include being among the first batch of academic members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1955 (today's academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences), the National Highest Science and Technology Award in 2001, a foreign academician of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, an academician of the Third World Academy of Sciences, and a recipient of the National "May Day" Labor Medal. winner of the 1995 Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation Science and Technology Achievement Award. Huang Kun is also a member of the Standing Committee of the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Huang Kun is a member of the Communist Party of China and a member of Jiusan Society.

Huang Kun’s life

Huang Kun’s life is closely connected with the Nobel Prize masters, from the University of Bristol to the University of Edinburgh, and then to the University of Liverpool. From Professor Mott to Professor Born, Huang Kun's first "golden age" has arrived. The master of physics Born is the founder of quantum mechanics and the pioneer of the theory of crystal atomic motion systems. As early as the Second World War, Born planned to start from the quantum science youth Huang Kun

The most general Starting from the principles, he wrote a monograph on lattice dynamics, but after the war because he was busy with other things and getting old, the matter was shelved for a while.

In mid-May 1947, Huang Kun came to work for Professor Born at the University of Edinburgh for a short period of time. During his work, Born found that Huang Kun was familiar with this subject and had profound insights. The important task of the monograph "Dynamics" was given to Huang Kun, and at the same time he was also given some incomplete old manuscripts of Born... Starting from 1948, Huang Kun not only used rigorous exposition and very clear writing within 4 years, The physical image of this book systematically summarizes this most basic field of solid-state physics, and also develops and improves this field with a series of creative works. "For a while, Professor Born and I had an argument..." No one expected that what Huang Kun originally wrote would be confirmed by experiments one by one after the discovery of laser in 1960. This established his authoritative position in the field of solid state physics. Born, the Nobel Prize winner, also gave a thumbs up. He said in a letter to Einstein: "The content of the manuscript has now completely surpassed my theory..."

Huang Kun Selected as one of the top ten people who moved China in 2002

Award speech: He has spent his whole life exploring the truth in the world of science, and has been silently passing on the fire of knowledge throughout his life. Faced with the ups and downs of fame and fortune, he has always been Indifferent. He not only made outstanding contributions to the progress of mankind in the field of science with his rigorous and diligent scientific attitude, but also interpreted the personality essence of a scientist with his indifference to fame and fortune and his frank attitude towards life.

From Mengyang Garden to Yenching University

Huang Kun was born in Beijing on September 2, 1919, and his ancestral home is Jiaxing, Zhejiang. My father was a senior employee of the Bank of China at the time. His mother, He Yanzhi, is originally from Hunan. She graduated from Beijing Women's Normal University and also works in a bank. Huang Kun is the youngest child in the family. His eldest sister is named Huang Xuan, his eldest brother Huang Yan, and his second brother Huang Wan (a famous cardiologist in my country). The four siblings are one year apart in age. They have a deep brotherly love and influence each other. Their names are all taken from the place names of Beijing. Huang Kun's "Kun" comes from "Kunming Lake", Huang Wan's "Wan" comes from "Wanping City", Huang Yan's "Yan" comes from "Yanshan", Huang The "Xuan" of Xuan comes from "Xuanwu". The family's high cultural quality and unfettered atmosphere, especially the seriousness of his mother, had a great influence on Huang Kun's growth as a boy. Generally speaking, many famous scientists show their talents in adolescence or even childhood. However, Huang Kun believed that he was mentally retarded. When talking about the current heavy burden on primary and secondary school students, Huang Kun cited personal experience as an example and believed that primary school study does not have to be too demanding, but the foundation laid in middle school will affect a person's life. Huang Kun went to school successively in Beijing Mengyang Garden, the Primary School Affiliated to Beijing Normal University, and Shanghai Guanghua Primary School (in an alley near Jing'an Temple, where Huang Kun stayed for more than a year). He recalled that during his primary school years, except for being able to read very early, often reading novels and learning addition, subtraction, multiplication and division during primary school, he did not seem to have learned any more knowledge. He still remembers that his most outstanding performance in elementary school was when he ranked fifth in the Beijing History and Geography Examination in the third grade. The prize he brought back to his mother was a mimeographed handout of Beijing. For this reason, he was always proud of being able to skillfully name all the inner and outer gates of Beijing.

Laying the foundation in middle school

As for the impact of laying the foundation in middle school on a lifetime, Huang Kun has both positive and negative experiences. Huang Kun did not finish fifth grade at Shanghai Guanghua Primary School, so he moved back to Beijing with his family. Huang Kun's uncle Huang Zitong was a professor in the philosophy department of Yenching University at the time. Huang Kun temporarily lived in his uncle's house and transferred to the junior high school attached to Yenching University. He only studied here for half a year before transferring to Luhe Middle School in Tong County. However, this short period of six months will have a long-term impact on Huang Kun's future development. Huang Kun's uncle happened to see Huang Kun being free after class and asked him why. Huang Kun replied that all the math homework assigned by the teacher had been completed. His uncle said, how can that be done? All the questions in the math textbook must be solved. Huang Kun has been doing this ever since. Since then, he has been doing well in math classes and has developed a strong interest in it. After transferring to Luhe Middle School, this habit not only continued, but also promoted the study of other subjects. Huang Kun later recalled that this accident had far-reaching consequences. Since he was busy doing his own problems after class and rarely looked at the examples in the book, he did not develop the habit of "imitating cats and tigers".

Key Points of Scholarship

An important feature of Huang Kun's scholarship is "starting from the first principles", and his habit may have been cultivated in middle school.

The predecessor of Luhe Middle School can be traced back to the Tongzhou Boys' School founded by an American pastor in 1867. In 1889, it performed Huang Kun's collected works

It became Luhe Academy including primary school, middle school, university and seminary. Later, it was renamed as Union College and North China Union University. In 1918, North China Union University and Huiwen University merged to form Yenching University, and the high school affiliated to Union University remained at its original location in Tongzhou, called Luhe Middle School. Although Luhe Middle School is a missionary school, after 1927, a Chinese was appointed as the principal and the "Bible" compulsory course was cancelled. The school motto of Luhe Middle School is "Character Education". Huang Kun is an excellent student in academics. Except for Chinese classes, his total grades in the three years of high school have always been at the top of the grade. All three Huang Kun brothers studied at Luhe Middle School. His eldest brother, who was in the same class with him because he had been out of school for two years, only had a math score of 30 or so. Under Huang Kun's leadership, Huang Yan's math score quickly exceeded the passing mark. Luhe Middle School holds a school-wide assembly every week. The three Huang brothers wore home-made cloth shoes and were praised by the principal at the school-wide assembly. Huang Kun himself believes that the negative lesson he learned in middle school was that he did not learn Chinese well in middle school Chinese classes. Like most middle school boys, Huang Kun felt that the essay questions given by the teacher could either be answered in one sentence, or that he had nothing to say. Later, Huang Kun looked back on his career and believed that the consequences affected him for the rest of his life. For example, Huang Kun graduated from Luhe Middle School in 1936 and planned to study engineering. He applied for Tsinghua University and Beiyang Institute of Technology, but was not admitted because of poor Chinese scores. Huang Kun wrote in his life story: "In 1944, I took the two examinations for studying in the United States and studying in the United Kingdom under the 'Gengzi Indemnity' program. I was not admitted to the examination for studying in the United States. Later, I found out through someone else's score check that I only scored 24 points in the Chinese language examination. During the exam for studying in the UK, I couldn't write any more after writing only three lines, so I had to hand it in. Later I learned that I was admitted. This surprised me when I had the opportunity to see the scores of all the candidates. Only then did I realize that this Chinese examiner was obviously very visionary and very measured in his scoring. Many candidates scored 40 points in Chinese, and there was no score lower than this. Although I was one of them, I did not take the Chinese test again in the future. But the Chinese language barrier is far from over. By the way, I have not laid a good foundation in Chinese language. Over the years, it has brought a lot of trouble to me at various times and on various occasions (from early exams to later writing, In recent years, I have been asked to say something or write an inscription on many occasions, but I could only refuse, and the host found it difficult to understand. This always reminds me of the middle school Chinese teacher who asked me a question and felt incompetent. It’s an embarrassing situation to talk about.” In 1937, Huang Kun passed the admission examination from Luhe Middle School to Yenching University and entered Yenching University. According to his own advantages and interests, he chose physics as his major.

A gathering of elites

After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, China's three famous universities: Tsinghua University, Peking University, and Nankai University moved to Kunming, Yunnan, and formed the National Southwest Associated University in the spring of 1938. During the most difficult and difficult years of the Chinese people's Anti-Japanese War, a large number of outstanding talents were cultivated, such as Yang Zhenning, Li Zhengdao, Huang Kun, Zhang Shoulian, Li Yinyuan, Huang Shushu, Deng Jiaxian, Zhu Guangya and so on. The most beautiful flower in the history of Chinese education has bloomed. Although the Department of Physics of Southwest Associated University is not large in scale, it is rich in talents. Many well-known professors with profound academic attainments in the Chinese physics community teach here. At that time, "Tsinghua University had Ye Qisun, Wu Youxun, Zhou Peiyuan, Zhao Zhongyao, Wang Zhuxi, and Huo Bingquan; Peking University had Rao Yutai, Zhu Wuhua, Wu Dayou, Zheng Huachi, and Ma Shijun; Nankai University had Zhang Wenyu and Xu Zhenyang. The mathematics teachers of Southwest Associated University were also among the best in the country at that time. Select. Tsinghua University has Yang Wuzhi, Zheng Dongsun, Chen Shengshen, Hua Luogeng, and Xu Baolu; Peking University has Jiang Zehan; Nankai University has Jiang Lifu. In the Southwest Associated University, there is only one class in each grade, and the living conditions are very difficult. They all lived in dormitories with mud walls and thatched roofs. In the autumn of 1941, after receiving his bachelor's degree from Yenching University, Huang Kun was introduced by Mr. Ge Tingsui and came to Southwest Associated University as a teaching assistant. From Beijing to Kunming, Huang Kun passed through Qingdao, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. , Guilin, Guizhou, it took more than 2 months. When he met Huang Kun for the first time, the department director said to him that there are many people here and there is no need for teaching assistants. This is true. So. Huang Kun's teaching task is only to lead a general physics experiment once a week. Wu Dayou asked him to work half as a graduate student and half as a teaching assistant, so that he could get some income.

Because of Zhang Shoulian, Huang Kun quickly met Yang Zhenning, who was in the same class as Zhang. The three of them have very different learning and thinking styles, but they are all extremely smart people. They attended classes taught by Wu Dayou and other teachers together. Through after-class discussions, they deepened their understanding of each other's character and knowledge.