Two ZJU scientists garner the 2020 Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation Prize

The presentation ceremony of the Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation Prize, one of China’s most prestigious science awards, was held on November 3. This year, the Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation bestowed prizes upon 52 distinguished scientists, among whom were two scientists from Zhejiang University. Prof. YANG Deren from the School of Materials Science and Engineering and Prof. HE Xiangning from the College of Electrical Engineering won the Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation Progress Award.

Semiconductor silicon materials are fundamental for the information industry. YANG Deren has been engaged in research into silicon materials and he has made systematic and innovative achievements in meeting the major national needs for integrated circuits (IC) and tackling those key scientific and technological problems with silicon materials which circumscribe the reliability and yield of IC devices. He put forward an original approach to controlling defects via nitrogen doping, which systematically revealed the physical properties of nitrogen-related defects, resolved the key scientific problems with its application in IC, and realized the large-scale production in China. This approach riveted massive attention, attracted numerous follow-up studies and enjoyed extensive applications all over the world. He proposed an innovative approach to reduce crystal lattice distortion through micro germanium doping. He grew the world’s first 4-12 inch germanium-doped Czochralski silicon, which successfully suppressed mismatch dislocation in heavily-doped silicon epitaxial layers, systematically solved the basic scientific problems of crystal growth, defect control and IC application, and realized the large-scale production of China’s characteristic silicon single crystal. In response to the major challenge that the future IC devices pose to nano-silicon materials, a series of achievements have been made in the field of nano-silicon (points, wires, and tubes).

The power electronic conversion system is at the core of the electric energy system in major national development fields such as new energy and high-speed traction. Prof. HE Xiangning has made systematic and pioneering achievements in topological theory and control methods regarding power electronic conversion. He discovered the multi-degree-of-freedom (multi-DOF) control mechanism of high-gain DC-transformer circuits, and developed a universal structure theory for high-gain circuits which has become an internationally recognized code for the formation of high-gain circuits. He proposed a unified topological structure principle for basic units and basic unit series-parallel coordination, a new PWM method and a novel system fault-tolerant strategy. Prof. HE Xiangning has made significant contributions to taking China’s research into power electronic topological theory and control methods to the forefront of the international research, promoting the development of China’s power electronics technology to meet the major national needs, and gaining extensive international fame.