About ICQM
The founding of International Center for Quantum Materials (ICQM, website: ../../../) in 2010 marked a major initiative taken by Peking University, aiming to create a platform of world-class excellence for physics research and education. ICQM has since been committed to building interdisciplinary research programs that span a wide spectrum of topics in condensed-matter and materials physics, to be based concretely on an intellectual environment that attracts scholars of the highest-caliber, and on a flexible and supportive infrastructure that promotes creativity, collaboration and exploration at the leading edges.
ICQM is dedicated to bringing in both internationally-renowned scientists and excellent young researchers and enabling them to work together productively in a dynamical culture. Located in Beijing and amid the fast socioeconomical transformation of China, ICQM endeavors to implement new academic systems that include two major components: independent research groups lead by principle investigators and tenure appraisal system. As of December 2016, ICQM has on its faculty 9 Chair Professors, 3 tenured Professors, 6 tenured Associated Professor, 12 tenure-track faculty members. Among the senior researchers are 1 Nobel Laureate, 2 Member of Chinese Academy of Sciences and 9 Fellows of American Physical Society. At full strength, ICQM will have research personnel consisting of 40 permanent members and over 200 Ph.D. students and postdoctoral fellows.
ICQM also provides first-rate research opportunities and solid training to younger scientist, including postdoctoral researchers and graduate students from both domestic and foreign institutions. In the past few years, ICQM has hosted 14 postdocs, several of whom have made important progresses in their research. The graduate students of ICQM are typically graduates from top Chinese universities, with exceptional academic performances. In addition to research, young researchers at ICQM are also profusely exposed to a wide-range of frontier topics research through a rich array of academic activities, such as seminars, lectures and summer schools.
Based on field of expertise, the research at ICQM is organized into 6 divisions, namely
- Low temperature and quantum transport experiments;
- Spintronics and low-dimensional magnetism experiments;
- Spectroscopy and high-resolution detection experiments;
- AMO experiment and precision measurement;
- Theoretical condensed matter physics;
- Computational physics.
Topics and systems of current interest include quantum transport, strongly-correlated electron systems, low-dimensional quantal 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, soft matters materials, and lots beyond. ICQM has 12 fully operational experimental laboratories with 3 more under construction, supported by a shared nanofab facility and a helium center. The PKU Daniel Chee Tsui laboratory is affiliated to ICQM, which will focus on extremely low temperature physics.
In order to promote academic exchanges and collaborations on the international arena, collaboration agreements have been reached between ICQM and world-renowned institutions, such as Rice University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Pennsylvania State University. Incoming graduate students may take advantage of the collaboration programs, such as Dual Degree Ph.D. program in Physics. In addition, ICQM has been visited by more than 100 scientists annually through various capacities.