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Huang Kun was born in September 1919 and died at the age of 86 in July 2005 in Beijing. He graduated from the department of physics of the Beijing-based Yenching University in 1941, and then went to England and studied at the University of Bristol in 1945. After receiving his doctoral degree, he worked at the University of Liverpool from 1949 to 1951.

 

In 1951, Huang opted to return to New China to teach, and became a professor of physics at Peking University until 1977. In 1955, he became one of the first batch of academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. From 1977 to 1983 he was the director of the Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences. After his retirement in 1983, Huang remained active in the research of semiconductors.

Huang was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1955, a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1980, and a member of the Third World Academy of Sciences in 1985. He served as Chairman on the Chinese Physics Society from 1987 to 1991.

Academician Huang Kun is an internationally well-known physicist, who has made many pioneering and founding contributions in solid-state physics.

He theoretically predicted, in the late forties of 20th century, diffuse X-ray reflection due to point defects in crystal lattices, which was experimentally confirmed in 1960s. It, as named “Huang Scattering”, has already developed into a method for studying micro-defects in solids.

His multi-phonon transition theory, known as “Huang-Rhys factor”, has become widely documented in the community of solid-state physics. With a pair of equations (Huang Equations), proposed by him, he was succeeded in coupling optical displacement, macroscopic electric field and electric polarization, and discovered, for the first time, the coupled vibratory modes between optical vibration and the electromagnetic field, which later developed to become the new concept of “polariton.”

 

His “Dynamical Theory of Crystal Lattices,” which was a result of his collaboration with Nobel laureate British physicist Max Born, has become a classic work of modern physics, which has left its long-term imprint on the solid-state physics.