People / Principal investigator
Liyuan Zhang
Tenured professor and doctoral supervisor, Department of Physics, SUSTech
Distinguished Professor, Chang Jiang Scholars Program
Liyuan Zhang leads the Mesoscopic Physics Laboratory. His experiments on trilayer graphene, zirconium pentatelluride and other layered crystals examine how dimensionality, magnetic fields and carrier density change the electronic states of a material.
In 2019, his group and its collaborators observed a three-dimensional quantum Hall effect in bulk zirconium pentatelluride. The result was selected as one of China’s top ten scientific advances of that year. The group also investigates light detection in two-dimensional heterostructures. Zhang serves as deputy head for research and leads the department’s graduate education committee.
Personal honours & appointments
- 2021
Shenzhen Municipal Government Special Allowance
Named a recipient of the Shenzhen municipal government’s special allowance.
- 2020
Chang Jiang Scholars Program Distinguished Professor
Selected as a Distinguished Professor under the Ministry of Education’s Chang Jiang Scholars Program.
- 2020
The Xplorer Prize
Received the Xplorer Prize in Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies.
- 2019
Guangdong Leading Talent in Science and Technology Innovation
Recognized by Guangdong Province as a leading talent in science and technology innovation.
- 2019
Shenzhen High-Level Talent, National Tier
Recognized in the national-tier leading talent category of Shenzhen’s high-level talent program.
- 2019
SUSTech President’s Award for Outstanding Research
Honored at SUSTech’s Teachers’ Day awards ceremony for outstanding research.
- 2012
National Young Talent Program
Selected for a national young talent program in the same year that he joined Renmin University of China as an associate professor of physics.
Research awards & scientific distinctions
The experimental work on the three-dimensional quantum Hall effect was a collaboration. Each entry identifies the result or team recognised and the year of the distinction.
- 2022
Guangdong Natural Science Award, First Prize
The 2022 prize, presented in September 2023, recognized the experimental discovery of the three-dimensional quantum Hall effect. Liyuan Zhang was the first-listed contributor to the joint SUSTech–USTC project.
- 2022
Shenzhen Natural Science Award, First Prize
The 2022 award for the experimental discovery of the three-dimensional quantum Hall effect names Liyuan Zhang, Fangdong Tang, Peipei Wang and Alei Li. The Shenzhen municipal government approved the award on 10 June 2023.
- 2022
Shenzhen Youth May Fourth Medal, team award
The SUSTech team studying novel quantum states and developing quantum devices received the group medal. Liyuan Zhang and Hai-Zhou Lu were among its leaders.
- 2021
National exhibition of science and technology achievements during the 13th Five-Year Plan
The exhibition in Beijing in October 2021 featured the collaborators’ observation of the three-dimensional quantum Hall effect in bulk ZrTe₅.
- 2019
China’s Top 10 Scientific Advances of 2019
China’s Ministry of Science and Technology announced the selection of the first observation of the three-dimensional quantum Hall effect on 27 February 2020. Liyuan Zhang (SUSTech), Zhenhua Qiao (USTC) and Shengyuan A. Yang (Singapore University of Technology and Design) were the paper’s corresponding authors.
- 2019
China’s Top 10 Science and Technology News Stories of 2019
Members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering voted the first observation of the three-dimensional quantum Hall effect onto their annual list, announced in Beijing on 11 January 2020.
- 2019
Outstanding research result, NSFC Department of Mathematical and Physical Sciences
The National Natural Science Foundation of China’s Department of Mathematical and Physical Sciences selected the collaborative observation of the three-dimensional quantum Hall effect as an outstanding result for 2019.
Research projects & funding
Projects led by Liyuan Zhang
- 2023
The three-dimensional quantum Hall effect and related studies
An NSFC Key Program project approved in August 2023. Liyuan Zhang is the principal investigator at SUSTech.
- 2018
Quantum transport in zirconium and hafnium pentatelluride crystals
An NSFC General Program project approved in 2018, with Liyuan Zhang as principal investigator.
- 2017
Plasmon-enhanced graphene vertical heterojunctions and photodetectors
A Shenzhen basic research project in the discipline development program, approved in 2017. Liyuan Zhang was the principal investigator.
- 2017
Spin transistors based on heterojunctions of graphene and other two-dimensional materials
A Shenzhen investigator-initiated basic research project approved in 2017, with Liyuan Zhang as principal investigator.
Funding acknowledged by collaborators
- 2019
Funding for the study of the three-dimensional quantum Hall effect in ZrTe₅
The 2019 paper acknowledges NSFC grant 11874193, Guangdong research team grant 2016ZT06D348 and Shenzhen grants JCYJ20170817110751776 and KQTD2016022619565991.
- 2011
Funding for the trilayer graphene quasiparticle study
In 2011, Zhang’s group at Renmin University of China credited NSFC grant 11174366 and National Basic Research Program (973) grant 2007CB925001 for supporting this collaborative study.
Selected research
- 2011
The quantum Hall effect in ABC-stacked trilayer graphene
Before joining SUSTech, Zhang was the first author of a magnetotransport study identifying quantum Hall states associated with quasiparticles of chirality three in trilayer graphene.
- 2019
Three-dimensional quantum Hall transport in bulk ZrTe₅
Fangdong Tang, Yafei Ren and colleagues observed a Hall resistivity plateau accompanied by near-zero longitudinal resistivity at low temperature and high magnetic field. Liyuan Zhang, Zhenhua Qiao and Shengyuan A. Yang were the co-corresponding authors.
- 2020
A thermoelectric Hall plateau in the extreme quantum limit
Working with Peking University, MIT and other collaborators, the team measured thermoelectric transport in bulk ZrTe₅ and observed a plateau in thermoelectric Hall conductivity when carriers occupied the lowest Landau level.
- 2023
Ambipolar superconductivity in monolayer 1T′-MoTe₂
In a collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Chongqing University and others, electrostatic gating produced superconducting transitions under both electron and hole doping, with onset temperatures around 7–8 K.
- 2026
Tuning the spin-zero condition in ZrTe₅ with uniaxial strain
Peipei Wang and colleagues used uniaxial strain to tune the spin-zero condition in quantum oscillations of ZrTe₅. Zhang was a co-corresponding author of the study.
Education & appointments
Education
BSc, Changchun Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (now Changchun University of Science and Technology).
Master of Engineering, Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
PhD in Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, United States.
Academic appointments
Postdoctoral research at Purdue University, Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University.
Appointed associate professor and doctoral supervisor in the Department of Physics at Renmin University of China.
Joined the Department of Physics at SUSTech to pursue research on mesoscopic quantum transport.
Promoted to tenured professor at SUSTech.