The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) held the inauguration ceremony today for the establishment of its first New Cornerstone Science Laboratory as Prof. DAI Xi, Chair Professor at the Department of Physics, has been awarded a research funding from the Tencent-initiated New Cornerstone Science Foundation. The funding will be used to conduct a five-year research project on topological materials and other areas.

 Sixty years ago, the whole world was gladly amazed when the first human blasted into space; over the years, hundreds of exploration missions have been deployed to extend our knowledge and understanding of the universe. Of all the space mysteries scientists still hope to solve, black holes remain the strangest and most mysterious phenomena we know so little about. 

Quantum simulations show that boson-like behaviours, so-called bosonization, emerge from an ensemble of fermions in three-dimensional systems, despite that bosons and fermions are governed by distinct quantum statistics. 

In the text book of quantum mechanics,  it was introduced that bosons and fermions, two types of elementary particles that build the universe, behave in a drastically different way. For example, bosons can share the same quantum state while fermions of the same kind cannot but fill available quantum states one by one.

Metastasis, the spread of cancer cells to a different body part from where it started, is considered as the most dangerous phase of cancer development. When cancer cells break away from the main tumor and enter the bloodstream or lymphatic system, they can travel to anywhere of the body, proliferate and creating a secondary tumor in a new location. It is often said that metastasis is responsible for around 90% of cancer deaths.

Achieving top scores of 5** in seven subjects in Hong Kong’s Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) examination, Katherine LAI Man-Wai was unsurprisingly accepted by two international elite universities.

The research team of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has recently made important progress in the field of new materials. Combining the characteristics of two-dimensional materials and topological materials, the team has for the first time discovered a universal generation mechanism of new materials with "type-II" Dirac cones. Many extraordinary properties of the material are realized in experiments, which addressed the key issue that the material could only be obtained sporadically under stringent limits.

Effective STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education is a major challenge in Hong Kong’s schools and institutions, which have struggled with a lack of talent, time, and tools to support teaching, resulting from an exam-oriented culture and a staid system of learning.

Researchers from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have developed the world’s first all-optical neural network for deep machine learning – bringing artificial intelligence a step closer to matching human brains in tackling complex problems such as pattern recognition or risk management, and at much lower energy consumption at the speed of light.

By Henry Tye and Wang Yi, Chair Professor of Physics and IAS Professor; Assistant Professor of Physics, HKUST

Scientific breakthroughs do not always make the front pages, but when an image of a black hole was released in mid-April, it became a headliner for days.

What makes this photo so fascinating? There are multiple reasons.

First, it is the first time humanity succeeded at photographing a black hole; in the past, scientists only inferred its existence from the effect black holes exert on their neighbors via its gravitational waves.

A joint research team of The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and The South China Normal University (SCNU) has set a new record of photonic quantum memory efficiency, pushing quantum computation a step closer to reality.