The Institute of Physics of the

Chinese Academy of Sciences The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); ), known by Academia Sinica in English until the 1980s, is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for natural sciences. It has historical origins in the Academia Sinica during the Republ ...

(IOPCAS ) was the result of a merger, after the communist took control of the mainland China in 1949, between the Institute of Physics of

Academia Sinica Academia Sinica (AS, la, 1=Academia Sinica, 3=Chinese Academy; ), headquartered in Nangang, Taipei, is the national academy of Taiwan. Founded in Nanking, the academy supports research activities in a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from ...

(IOPAS) founded in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

in 1928 and the Institute of Physics of (IOPNAP) founded in

Peiping "Beijing" is from pinyin ''Běijīng,'' which is romanized from , the Chinese name for this city. The pinyin system of transliteration was approved by the Chinese government in 1958, but little used until 1979. It was gradually adopted by various ...

in 1929. The director of the IOPNAP, physicist

Yan Jici Yan Jici (; 23 January 1901 – 2 November 1996), also commonly known as Ny Tsi-ze, was a Chinese physicist and politician who is considered a founder of modern physics in China. He was a founding member of Academia Sinica in 1948 and of the Chi ...

(Ny Tsi-Ze), was appointed director of the new institution after the merger was completed in 1950. The new entity was named the Institute of Applied Physics before being renamed to Institute of Physics in 1958. In Taiwan, the IOPAS was re-established in

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the n ...

in 1962 by another "founding father" of modern Chinese physics -

Wu Ta-You Wu Ta-You () (27 September 1907 – 4 March 2000) was a Chinese physicist and writer who worked in the United States, Canada, mainland China and Taiwan. He has been called the Father of Chinese Physics. Early life and education Wu was born i ...

. Claiming the same root, a partnership agreement between the IOPCAS in Mainland China and IOPAS in Taiwan was signed by their directors during the celebration of their 80th anniversary of foundation amid a warming trend in cross-strait relations of the time. However, in 2018, the two IOPs celebrated their 90th anniversary of foundation without announcing any further cooperation. By the end of 2017, the IOPCAS counted 346 of scientific research, 127 of technical support, with research activities on condensed matter physics, optical physics, atomic and molecular physics, plasma physics, soft matter physics, and condensed matter theory and computation physics. 14 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and 1 academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering had been elected from the IOPCAS. Besides Ny Tsi-Ze and Wu Ta-You, several Chinese prominent scientists have also worked at IOPCAS or one of its predecessors,

Wu Youxun Wu Youxun (; 26 April 1897 – 30 November 1977), also known as Y. H. Woo, was a Chinese physicist. His courtesy name was Zhèngzhī (). Biography Wu graduated from the Department of Physics of Nanjing Higher Normal School (later renamed N ...

(Y. H. Woo),

Zhao Zhongyao Chung-Yao Chao (; 27 June 1902 – 28 May 1998) was a Chinese theoretical physicist. He studied the scattering of gamma rays in lead by pair production in 1930, without knowing that positrons were involved in the anomalously high scattering cro ...

(Chung-Yao Chao),

Qian Sanqiang Qian Sanqiang (; October 16, 1913 – June 28, 1992), also known as Tsien San-Tsiang, was a Chinese nuclear physicist and among the leading scientists of the Two Bombs, One Satellite program. Due to his central role in the development of China ...

(Tsien San-Tsiang), among others. Three Chinese state key laboratories are now under IOPCAS. They are the National Lab for

Superconductivity Superconductivity is a set of physical properties observed in certain materials where electrical resistance vanishes and magnetic flux fields are expelled from the material. Any material exhibiting these properties is a superconductor. Unlike ...

established in 1991, the State Key Laboratory of

Magnetism Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that are mediated by a magnetic field, which refers to the capacity to induce attractive and repulsive phenomena in other entities. Electric currents and the magnetic moments of elementary particles ...

opened in 1990 and the State Key Laboratory of

Surface Physics Surface science is the study of physical and chemical phenomena that occur at the interface of two phases, including solid– liquid interfaces, solid–gas interfaces, solid–vacuum interfaces, and liquid–gas interfaces. It includes the f ...

founded in 1987. In addition, a series of CAS key labs in the fields such as Optical Physics, Extreme Conditions Physics, Electron Microscopy, etc. are also built in IOPCAS. The IOPCAS established partnership with institutions and universities of over 30 countries, such as

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

(US),

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

(US), the Royal Society of London (UK),

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science Basic research, also called pure research o ...

(CNRS, France),

Max Planck Society The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (german: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e. V.; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. ...

(Germany),

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science The is an Independent Administrative Institution in Japan, established for the purpose of contributing to the advancement of science in all fields of the natural and social sciences and the humanities.JSPSweb page History The Japan Society for ...

, among many others. By 2018, the IOPCAS receives in average 500 in-coming visits per year, while the out-going visits are around 700 per year. The IOPCAS is the major sponsor of

Chinese Physical Society The Chinese Physical Society (CPS) a professional society of physicists established in 1932. It is part of the China Association for Science and Technology. Current membership is at around 40,000. CPS has been a member of the International Union ...

(CPS), a nongovernmental organization which can find its roots in 1932, today officially affiliated to the

China Association for Science and Technology The China Association for Science and Technology (CAST; ) is a mass organization of Chinese scientists and engineers, which is composed of multiple national professional societies and hundreds of branches at various local and international level ...

. The IOPCAS joins force with CPS publishes four academic journals:

Chinese Physics B ''Chinese Physics B'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published in English by IOP Publishing. It is sponsored by the Chinese Physical Society and the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Scope ''Chinese Physics B'' is ...

, Chinese Physics Letter,

Acta Physica Sinica ''Acta Physica Sinica'' (abbreviation: ''Acta. Phys. Sin.'', or also ''APS'') is a peer-reviewed scientific journal in the fields of physics published by the Chinese Physical Society. Established in 1933 as ''Chinese Journal of Physics'', the jo ...

and Physics.

References

{{authority control Research institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences 1950 establishments in China Physics institutes Research institutes established in 1950