T.D. Lee Congratulates IHEP's New Discovery

On July 31, Nobel Lauveate Prof. T.D. Lee sent a letter to Prof. Chen Hesheng, Director of the Institute of High-Energy Physics(IHEP), CAS, congratulating him on the observation of a new resonance state in the J/psi rediatire decay to proton and anti-proton process at the Beijing Spectrometer (BESII/BEPCII). Prof. Lee spoke highly of this discovery and wished more success on the BEPC II project.

Breakthroughs in Global Cambrian Period Research

The International Union of Geological Science (IUGS) has recently approved China to establish a Bottom Global Stratotype of the Cambrian Period, namely the Furong Series and Paibi Stage. They are the first "Golden Spike" in that system and also the first Series and Stage established in China. The research group involving American experts headed by Prof. Shanchi Peng from Nanjing Institute of Paleontology, CAS, achieved this important research result. In recent years, Prof. Peng and his group have made great progress in the South China and global Cambrian period research. Through the multi-disciplinary research on the Stratigraphic Sequence of Cambrian period near Paibi area in Chinas' Hunan Province, they have established a Golden Spike with global standards and entitled them in accordance with the Chinese local names.

The establishment of a Golden Spike in a country is the symbol of an international leading level of comprehensive research in the field of geology, and it is also the country's highest honor. The Paibi Golden Spike was approved by the International Stratum Committee and IUGS in March and July of 2002 respectively. The President of IUGS has signed the certificate recently.

Breakthrough in Alkali Metals Surface Absorption Research

Through cooperation with Tohoku University of Japan and U.S. National of Renewable Energy Lab, the research group led by Prof. Qikun Xue and Enge Wang in the Institute of Physics, CAS has made breakthroughs in the traditional research program on alkali metals surface absorption. The new model of this research has deepened the understanding of the atoms' interactions and their rules of self-assembly on surface. This research has also solved some pending basic questions in the field. The research result was published on the《Physical Review Letters》.

Symposium on Frontier Theory & Experimental Physics Issues Held

The first Symposium on Frontier Theory and Experimental Physics Issues was held by CAS in Beijing recently. Prof. Zuoxiu He, CAS member, presented a scientific report on the research status of particle physics and cosmology. He predicted that the theories of physics are facing the fifth breakthrough and the 21st century is still the century of physics. Prof. Lu Yu , CAS member, gave a report focusing on the research progress in the condensed matter physics area while Prof. Hesheng Chen introduced the status quo of the particle physics research and its development strategy in China.

World's Largest Witherite Mine Found

Post-doc. Zhicheng Lü from the Guiyang Institute of Geochemistry, CAS, has disclosed in his post-doc research report that the world's largest witherite mine exists in the South Qinling Mountains of China. He found out an intact bio-barite exists in witherite mine. This new finding has provided direct evidence for the understanding of origin of this ore. Witherite is another major barium ore besides barite. It is widely used in oil and gas exploration, chemical and light industry, metallurgy, construction and medical sectors. It is an outstanding raw material for chemical industrial products. Currently, exploration finds limited witherite resources in the natural world.

Observation of High-energy Electrons and Gamma Rays

Aresearch group led by Prof. Jin Chang, CAS Purple Mountain Observatory (PMO), developed a new method to observe high-energy electrons and gamma rays. Reducing the weight of the detector as well as the observation difficulty, the application of the method brought great progresses to the research on the observation of high-energy electrons and gamma rays.

Through simulation calculation and experiment, Chang's group developed a new method to observe electrons and gamma rays. Comparing the energy spectra of electrons observed by the PMO with those obtained by other detectors, the results coincided perfectly with those observed by AMS in the lower-energy field and by EC in the high-energy field. This is the first realization of the high-resolution observation of the high-energy (20GeV to 1TeV) electrons with only one device in the world.

POM will work to identify the existence of dark matter particles by observing high-energy (5 GeV to 1TeV) gamma rays and electrons through international and domestic cooperation.

High-power Semiconductor Laser Module Developed at SIOM

ASingle fiber coupled high-power semiconductor laser module has recently been developed in CAS Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, which consequently becomes the only institution in China capable of producing the device with independent intellectual property rights. The institute is now engaged in the research of technologies oriented to its industrialization, such as using optical fiber of numerical aperture from 0.11 to 0.22 and core diameter from 400um to 1mm to make single optical fiber coupled CW semiconductor laser module with 10W to 40W output, and a series of products with wavelength at 808nm, 940nm, 980nm,etc..