History & Today of the Laboratory

   The research of nuclear physics and technology has long history at Peking University. In 1955 the first education unit for nuclear science in China was founded at Peking University, which is well known as the Department of Technical Physics, Peking University later. There are total 13 academicians in more than 5000 graduates of that department. In 1990 the Key Laboratory of Heavy Ion Physics, Ministry of Education (MOE) was established at Peking University, which is the predecessor of our State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology. Great progress has been made on the scientific research and graduate student training since then.

   The laboratory has made great efforts to introduce and foster the qualified scientists, so the research team has been optimized continuously. The laboratory also readjusted the research directions dynamically, strived for undertaking the major and key national projects actively, and did our best to form ourselves distinguishing feature and to promote the research level. In recent years the research activities of the laboratory have been organized into four directions, i.e. the radioactive nuclear beam physics, the hardon physics, the advanced particle accelerator techniques and the applications of nuclear technology. During the past ten years the permanent staff of the laboratory won the National S&T Advancement Award, the MOE S&T Advancement Award, and the Beijing City S&T Award many times. They published quite a lot of papers with high quality, including 5 papers on Physical Review Letters. Professor Chen Jiaer was elected as the President of Executive Council, Chinese Physical Society in 1999-2003 and the Vice-President of Executive Council, International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) since 2005. Professor Ye Yanlin was elected as the Vice-President of Executive Council, Chinese Nuclear Physics Society since 2004. Professor Guo Zhiyu was elected as the Vice-President of Executive Council, Chinese Particle Accelerator Society since 2004. Professor Ye Yanlin and Professor Zhao Kui are principle investigators of two projects of National Basic Research Program (973).

   The laboratory passed four national evaluations in 1991, 1995, 2000 and 2005, and obtained the grade “good” for all the evaluations, which is the best result among the laboratories belonging to the field of nuclear science. The laboratory was also evaluated by the Ministry of Education in 2004 and obtained the grade “excellent”. The main subjects of our laboratory, both Particle Physics and Nuclear Physics and Nuclear Technology and applications, were appraised as the State Key Disciplines in 2001 and again in 2006.

   In the past two years the laboratory has experienced some important changes and is now on the way to become a State Key Laboratory based on the previous Key laboratory of the Ministry of Education. In addition the laboratory is closely related (overlapped) to the unique national education bases for basic science research with major in nuclear science. This is achieved due to the overall improvement of the situation for the nuclear science and technology in China, to the substantial progress of our research and education work and to the great effort and help from our colleagues around country.

   Nuclear science in China seems experiencing a new “spring” in our society, due to the new public view and national need for nuclear power, nuclear security and nuclear technology applications. This overall situation has of course big impact to the upstream basic science research and especially the training of high level experts in the field. Establishment of the State Key Laboratory in this field will certainly help to satisfy the national and society need.

   In Peking University the nuclear science research and education has more than 50 years history and has made substantial contribution to the nation’s nuclear cause. At the end of last century when the institutions related to nuclear science in the Chinese universities encountered difficulties to survive, Peking University had managed to keep the working teams and facilities at a moderate level. This turned out to be a wise choice and when the new phase of development comes in the new century we have been able to catch up in a rapid way. The laboratory has now developed into four divisions (directions) with good facilities. The research work of these divisions and their teams has largely been developed over past few years and are briefly demonstrated in this report.

   Since 1990 this laboratory, as a MOE key laboratory, had been led by former director Prof. Chen Jiaer and then Prof. Guo Zhiyu, and has experienced several times the rigorous review by the Ministry of Science and Technology. The success in these reviews is essential to the step up to the state key laboratory. Over the years we have got so much helps from our colleagues in the related fields, especially those functioned in the previous and current scientific committee of the laboratory. We are so grateful to all of them and will in turn do our best to contribute to the long range development of nuclear science and technology in China.