AWARDEE OF PHYSICS PRIZE

TANG DINGYUAN

Prof. Tang Dingyuan: physicist, the academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Born in May, 1920 at Jintan county of Jiangsu Province. He graduated from Central University at Chongqing (China) in 1942 and received a Master degree from University of Chicago (USA) in 1950. He came back from USA to China in 1951. He was a professor, director of laboratory of Institute of Physics and Institute of Semiconductor, vice-director, director of Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is a fellow of the Chinese Institute of Electronics. He was vice-director of the Chinese Optical Society and Shanghai Society of Physics. He was editor-in-chief of Journal of Infrared Physics and Millimeter Wave, and vice editor-in-chief of Journal of Applied Sciences.
When he was at University of Chicago, he discovered a new kind of phase transition in the metal cerium and created a diamond bomb for high-pressure, which has been developed as one of important instruments for high-pressure investigations of physics. After he came back, he worked in the fields of semiconductor physics and semiconductor devices. In 1958, he supervised scientists group from nine institutes around the country to study infrared detectors, which established a foundation of infrared technology research in China. In 1964, he came to Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics (SITP) and turned it as a major institute for infrared technology research. Now, SITP has been one of important research centers for infrared technology in China. He has developed some ten devices such as silicon solar cell, mercury cadmium telluride detectors, etc. These devices were successfully applied into satellites, military and civil advanced instruments. They provided remarkable contributions to developments of “Two missiles and One satellite" in China. He organized the investigations of narrow gap semiconductors for the first time in China, and systematically studied material physics and devices of mercury cadmium telluride. He achieved many creative results, among which thirteen results were included in Landolt-Boemstein: Numrical Data and Functional Relationships in Science and Technology III/41B. He was also warm-hearted in scientific popularizations, and published many papers. In particular, the paper of Acoustical problem of several buildings in Tiantan published in 1953 revealed the physical mechanism of Tiantan echoing wall (huiyin bi), which was most impressive.