黄昆对物理学的贡献

Huang's Contributions to Physics and Their Significance

黄昆是晶格动力学的奠基人和权威 ,声子物理学科开拓者。他是多声子光跃迁和多声子无辐射跃迁理论学科的开创者 ,是”极化激元”概念的最早阐述者。他的姓氏也与晶格振动长波唯象方程、X光漫散射理论联系在一起。在多年离开科研第一线后 ,黄昆 70岁还建立了半导体超晶格光学声子的“黄 朱模型”。本文简要介绍黄昆先生在科学研究领域的几项主要贡献。

The phonon, quantized lattice vibration, plays a fundamental role in condensed matter physics. Professor Kun Huang is known throughout the world for his many pioneering contributions to physics, in particular to the phonon physics, a branch closely related to the luminescence in solids. His book entitled 'Lattice Dynamics in Crystal Lattice' (in collaboration with Nobel laureate M. Born) is the first comprehensive and compact presentation in this field on the basis of quantum mechanics, which, although published about half century ago, is still used as standard textbook until now. In his early articles on the interaction between radiation field and ionic crystals, he first proposed an important idea later known as ' polariton', which has changed our way of thinking about the propagating the EM Modes in crystalline media. His theory on multiphonon transition in semiconductors and insulators, the Huang-Rhys theory, which dealt with both the multiphonon optical and non-radiative transitions, laid the foundation of this important field. He pointed out the possibility of observing X-ray diffuse scattering in crystals due to impurities at first, later known as 'Huang's diffuse scattering'. In early 1950's, he formulated a pair of phenomenological equations relating the long-wavelength optical vibration to macroscopic electric field and polarization, which has been widely applied and named as Huang's Equation. As a 70 years old man, he and his collaborator resolved a puzzle about the optical phonon modes in semiconductor superlattices and worked out the 'Huang-Zhu Model'. In recognition of his lifetime achievements, Huang was recently honored with the Supreme Scientific and Technological Award in China. Huang's main scientific contributions and their significance are briefly reviewed in this paper.