AWARDEE OF PHYSICS PRIZE

MIN NAIBEN

Abstract

Min Naben (Nai-Ben-Ming), born on August 9, 1935 in Jiangsu Province, is a noted crystal physicist.  He is now a professor of physics, director of the State Key Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, director of the Institute of Solid State Physics, and director of the Institute of Materiel Science, Nanjing  University, and a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Min has been engaged in the study of crystal defects, crystal growth, and the physical properties of crystals for a long time.  During the years '60-'82, he and his colleagues developed the etching method for revealing dislocation lines and networks, determined the type and configurations of dislocations, and the dislocation structures on sub-grain boundary in b.c.c. crystals. Cooperating with the others, they observed, for the first time, the birefringence image of end on screw dislocations and gave it a detailed explanation according to the anisotropy of both elastic and photoelastic properties of crystals.  The study of crystal defects won the second Award of National Natural Science in 1982.
Min described the defect machanism of crystal growth in an unified manner based on the atomic configuration around defects and the intrinsic properties of defects. During the years '86 to '95, he generalized the screw dislocation mechanism to the growth mechanism assisted by any-type of dislocation, proposed the stacking fault-, twin lamella-, re-entrance corner-assisted growth mechanism and the cooperative growth mechanism of re entrance corners with rough surface; these defect mechanisms of growth have been proved experimentally by Bennema's group recently.
During the nineties, Min and his co-workers revealed for the first time the physical reasons for the electroconvection and the  role of electroconvection in pattern selection on electrocrystallization, based on an experimental observation proposed a new pattern selection hypothesis in morphological evolution, experimentally demonstrated the role of convective noise near growing        interface on the morphology selection and evolution in crystallization, revealed the intrinsic oscillation of concentration field in front of a growing interface and the associated periodic roughening transition, periodic nucleation in fractal aggregation.
In past 20 years, Min and his co-worker extended the concept of superlattice from semiconductor to dielectrics.  They prepared for the first time the LN, LT, BNN, SBN, TGS crystals with periodic microstructures (later they called it dielectric superlattice), verified quantitatively the quasi-phase-matching theory, extended the quasi-phase-matching theory from periodic superlattice to quasiperiodic superlattice and predicted that with such superlattice some coupled optical parametric process can be realized, realized experimentally both the third-harmonic generation and multiple wavelength second-harmonic generation with high conversion efficiency in LT and SBN quasiperodic superlattice, thus demonstrated the practical applications of quasiperiodic superlattice in nonlinear optical field, proposed a nonlinear multiple wave dynamical theory for study of light transmission in 2-dimensional (2D) dielectric supelattice with Kerr-type nonlinearity, i.e., a 2D nonlinearphotonic crystal, theoretically predicted a new mechanism for optical bistability and proved experimentally in such 2D superlattice, theoretically and experimentally studied the high frequency ultrasonic excitation and propagation in periodic and quasiperiodic dielectric superlattices which is useful in applications. With these concepts, theories and experimental results, Min opened a new realm to develop new synthetic materials and microstructured devices for variety application in the opto-electric and acousto-electric field.