National Millimeter Waves Laboratory
Electromagnetic Field and Microwave Technology is among the first national key disciplines approved by the Ministry of Education. The National Millimeter Waves Laboratory, approved by the State Development Planning Commission in 1991, was completed and officially opened in 1993 after passing the acceptance inspection of the State. The Laboratory, constructed based on the national key discipline of Electromagnetic Field and Microwave Technology, is authorized to confer PhD degrees and boasts a center for post-doctoral research. With over 20 years’ development, the Laboratory has now become the base for high-level fundamental and application research in the field of microwaves, millimeter waves and sub-millimeter waves, the research base for high technology badly needed by the State, the base for gathering and cultivating excellent scientists and engineers in the field, as well as the platform for relevant international top-level academic exchanges.
At present, the post of director of the Discipline and the Laboratory is held by “Cheung Kong Scholar” Distinguished Professor Hong Wei, who is also winner of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (NSFDYS), Chief Expert of National Program 973 and IEEE Fellow; and the post of director of the academic committee is held by “Cheung Kong Scholar” Chair Professor Wu Ke, who is also academician of the Canadian Royal Academy of Sciences and the Canadian Royal Academy of Engineering, winner of NSFDYS (B-type) and IEEE Fellow; Professor Sun Zhongliang, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Chief Scientist of National program 973 also work with the Laboratory. In addition, the Laboratory boasts 3 Cheung Kong Scholars of the Ministry of Education, 3 winners of NSFDYS, 1 member of the Recruitment Program of Global Youth Experts initiated by the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the CPC, 1 leading scientist of Jiangsu High-Level Talent Cultivation Program 333, as well as 3 members of the New Century Outstanding Talents Program of the Ministry of Education. Currently, the Laboratory boasts 53 full-time researchers, including ? professors and ? associate professors, among whom 45 own the doctoral degree, occupying 85% of the total. The team was elected among the first innovation teams awarded by the Ministry of Education in 2004, and the creative group awarded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) in 2007.
Now the Laboratory has the following three major orientations of research: new artificial electromagnetic materials and computational electromagnetics; theories and technologies concerning millimeter waves and sub-millimeter waves; and wireless communication radio frequency and antenna technology.
Over the past five years, the Laboratory has taken the lead in many national major projects, including 2 projects of National Program 973, 1 major project funded by NSFC, 3 national major special research subjects, as well as various general projects of National Program 863 and NSFC, and multiple major projects of advanced research for the national defense. Funds for scientific research have totaled 119 million RMB, averaging 23.81 million RMB yearly and 2.13 million RMB per capita. Funds for national projects take up 82% of the total, indicating that the Laboratory has been emphasizing fundamental research and studies of high technology badly needed by the State.
Over the five years, the Laboratory has published 363 academic papers in such international core journals as Science, Nature Communications, PRL, IEEE Trans. MTT, IEEE Trans. AP, APL, Optics Lett. and so on; 25 papers were awarded as excellent papers in 2010. The Laboratory has also won multiple significant international awards for academic achievements, such as IEEE Piergiorgio L. E. Uslenghi Prize Paper Award in 2011 (the first time for the award granted to scholars of Chinese mainland), and CST University Publication Award in 2007 (the only paper of Chinese scholars that has won the award since it was set up in 2003). In addition, it has published 4 monographs, and applied for 58 national patents for invention as well as 83 patents for utility models, some of which have been applied to national projects or products.
Major research achievements of the Laboratory over the past five years
1. Studies on new artificial electromagnetic materials and their applications: research achievements in terms of electromagnetic black hole, which have exerted enormous influence in the academic world, was elected into the “top ten scientific developments of China of 2010” and won the 1st prize of Natural Science of the Ministry of Education in 2011.
Artificial-electromagnetic-materials-based electromagnetic black hole
2. The structure principle and application of substrate integration guided waves: the technology of substrate integration guided waves initiated internationally was on top of the list of the ten inventions that would change future passive-based control and controlling devices selected by Microwave Journal in 2011.
3. The simulation algorithm of complicated electromagnetic problems and its applications: the “XX” software developed with China’s proprietary intellectual property rights, which helped break the monopoly of the USA, has been successfully applied to scientific research for the national defense.
4. The theory and technology concerning millimeter waves (MMW) and sub-millimeter waves: breakthroughs have been made in such technologies as highly stable sub-millimeter waves signal reference sources, high frequency-high output power-high frequency multiplier chains, and power-synthesis frequency multipliers; achievements in MMW integration front ends have caught up with and even surpassed the products in terms of the key technical indexes, thus helping push China’s industrial sector forward in this field.
5. MMW and sub-millimeter waves communication front end technology: the Laboratory has made key strides in fundamental research on the integrated circuits and system of silicon-substrate MMW and sub-millimeter waves, and has taken the lead in applying the frequency bands of MMW and sub-millimeter waves to CMOS simulation integrated circuits in China. Studies on wideband MIMO radio frequency, new antenna and diversity techniques have contributed greatly to China’s new-generation wireless communication, and relevant achievements have won the 1st prize of Scientific and Technological Progress of Jiangsu Province in 2008.
In the past five years, the Laboratory has made new progress. Specifically, it has hosted a series of significant international conferences, like ICMMT2008, GSMM2008, META2008, IEEE ICUWB2010, and URSI ISSSE2010, and jointly organized many other similar conferences. As for the lectures delivered in the Laboratory by foreign experts, there are 91 person-times in total; lectures made by our experts abroad, 24 person-times; attending international academic conferences, 290 person-times; papers published in significant international conferences, 309; plenary or invited lectures delivered in important international academic conferences, over 30 person-times.
Over the last five years, the Laboratory has produced 58 doctors, 212 masters; at present, it has 61 PhD candidates (including 2 overseas students) and 207 master’s degree candidates. 1 dissertation of the Laboratory has been elected into the “National Excellent 100 Doctoral Dissertations”, and 3 dissertations with the award nomination for the “National Excellent 100 Doctoral Dissertations”. In addition, of the doctors it has cultivated, 3 have become professors, more than 20, associate professors, and 3 have been elected into New Century Outstanding Talents Program of the Ministry of Education; other graduates are distributed across the world, some of whom have become the backbone of their own institutions or enterprises.
