About ICQM

The International Center for Quantum Materials (ICQM) was established in 2010 as a major initiative of Peking University, aiming to create a new type of platform for research and education. ICQM has since been committed to perform cutting-edge research at the frontiers of condensed matter physics and quantum materials, to create an innovative academic environment, and to establish a world-class plateform for physics research and education.  

As an innovative plateform for science and technology, ICQM has been devoting a great effort to recruit internationally-renowned scientists as well as excellent young researchers, and to provide first-class infrastructure and dynamical scientific environment for basic research. Located in Beijing and amid the fast socioeconomic transformation of China, ICQM endeavors to implement a new academic structure that is based on two major components: independent principle investigator system and tenure appraisal system. As of December 2019, the ICQM faculty members consist of 4 Chair Professors, 9 tenured Full Professors, 7 tenured Associated Professors, and 9 tenure-track Associate/Assistant Professors. Among the senior researchers there are 1 Nobel Laureate, 2 Member of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and 6 Fellows of American Physical Society.

ICQM provides solid training and great research opportunities for young scientists, including postdoctoral researchers and graduate students from both domestic and foreign institutions. In the past a few years, ICQM has hosted 14 postdocs with several of them making important achievements in their research fields. 151 students are currently enrolled in the ICQM graduate program. The ICQM graduate students are typically graduates from top Chinese universities with exceptional academic performances. The students at ICQM are provided with an active scientific environment to explore a wide-range of frontier research topics through a rich array of academic activities, such as seminars, lectures and summer schools.

The research at ICQM is organized into 6 divisions according to research interest and expertise, namely

• Low temperature and quantum transport experiments;

• Spintronics and low-dimensional magnetism experiments;

• High-resolution Spectroscopy experiments;

• AMO experiment and precision measurement;

• Theoretical condensed matter physics;

• Computational physics.

Topics of current research activities include quantum transport, strongly-correlated electron systems, low-dimensional quantum systems, topological effects in condensed matter physics, mesoscopic superconducting systems, spintronics, advanced scanning tunneling microscopy, ultra-fast spectroscopy, neutron spectroscopy, ultra-cold atoms, computational simulations for quantum materials, surface dynamics, water behaviors under confinement, and soft matters materials, etc. ICQM consists of 17 experimental laboratories, a public supporting laboratory for physical property measurement, a shared nanofab facility, and a helium center. The PKU Daniel Chee Tsui laboratory is affiliated to ICQM, which works on extremely low temperature physics.

By December 2019 since the establishment of the center in 2010, ICQM has published more than 900 SCI papers, many of which were published in the most influential scientific journals in the world, such as Science, Nature series journals, Physical Review Letters, etc. The research funding received by ICQM faculty members from Chinese research funding agencies has almost reached 350 million RMB. ICQM members have garnered many national and international awards, such as the ACCMS Award, Ho Leung Ho Lee prize, OCPA AAA-Poe Prize, State Natural Science Award, etc.

In order to promote international academic exchanges and collaborations, collaboration agreements have been reached between ICQM and world-renowned institutions, such as the Rice University, University of Texas at Austin, and Pennsylvania State University. Incoming graduate students may take the advantage of such collaboration programs to work at different places and obtain Dual Degree Ph.D. in Physics. In addition, ICQM has been visited by more than 100 scientists annually through various capacities.