Rice U. and China’s Zhejiang U. form research collaboration

CONTACT: B.J. Almond
PHONE: 713-348-6770
E-MAIL: balmond@rice.edu

Rice University and China’s Zhejiang University signed an agreement today to establish an International Collaborative Center on Quantum Matter.

	From left, Rice President David Leebron and Zhejiang University President Yang Wei meet for a signing ceremony to establish an International Collaborative Center on Quantum Matter in the presence of faculty members from Zhejiang’s Physics Department.

The center is intended to enhance the long-term international research collaborations between Rice and Zhejiang and other leading institutions in the emerging area of quantum materials and magnetism.

Both universities already have strong programs in this field. In the 1970s, Rice established the Rice Quantum Institute and in 2006 added the Rice Quantum Magnetism Laboratory. In 2007, China’s Ministry of Education recognized Zhejiang University’s theoretical physics and condensed matter physics as “National Key Subjects.”

“Rice and Zhejiang University excel in science and technology, and combining the two institutions’ expertise in quantum matter will be a powerful international collaboration that will advance this important research for the benefit of people in both of our home countries and around the world,” Rice President David Leebron said from the Zhejiang campus in Hangzhou, China, where the agreement was signed.

The electronic and physical properties of materials like superconductors derive from interactions at the smallest scale — the quantum level. By studying these interactions, scientists can better understand the materials needed for next-generation computing, communications and energy technology.

The collaboration is another step forward for Leebron’s Vision for the Second Century, which includes extending Rice’s international reach and impact and developing new research collaborations.

The center’s office will be housed on the Zhejiang campus. Rice and Zhejiang will collaborate on research projects, conduct joint workshops and send faculty and students to each other’s campus for research.

Qimiao Si, Rice professor of physics and astronomy, and Fuchun Zhang and Zhuan Su, Zhejiang physics professors, will coordinate the center’s programs on their respective campuses.