On the afternoon of December 12, 2016, Prof. Du Jiangfeng, Academician of Chinese Academy of Science and Executive Director of School of Physical Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, at the invitation of 97^th Lecture Series, gave a lecture in the Lecture Hall 110 entitled “Quantum Revolution: From Quantum Game to Quantum Probe”. The lecture was chaired by Academician Yu Dapeng from Department of Physics of SUSTech.

Lecture scene

Du Jiangfeng giving the lecture

Prof. Du Jiangfeng is mainly engaged in the experimental study of quantum physics and its application and developed the quantum experimental techniques like spinning quantum manipulation and dynamical decoupling. Thanks to the successful development of experiment equipment with high-performance magnetic resonance, he led the detection sensitivity and resolution of nuclear magnetic resonance to the world level, and made research achievements with international influences in quantum physics’ application to precision measurement and information science.

According to Prof. Du Jiangfeng, the first quantum revolution targeted at the reflective observation and interpretation on the microscopic quantum, and the started second quantum revolution aims at artificial preparation and active manipulation of quantum state. His research covers ultra-fast parallel quantum computation, quantum precision measurement beyond classical limit, unconditionally secure quantum communication, etc.

Prof. Du Jiangfeng explained his researches in quantum computation in details and great breakthroughs in quantum game, quantum computation and quantum diamond probe. In 2002, the film A Beautiful Mind was presented with the Academy Award, which gave a worldwide recognition to legend of Nash, a master of game theory. Inspired from this film, Prof. Du Jiangfeng introduced quantum correlation into classical game theory, which provided a new view for understanding confrontation and cooperation. In addition to the theoretical crack of Nash’s case – “Prisoner’s Dilemma”, he successfully proved the prediction with the help of nuclear magnetic resonance equipment. For quantum computation, the coherence stack is applied to achieve efficient storage of information, featuring a higher capability in computation than classical computers.

Besides the explanations of “capabilities” and “ways to achieve” and the breakthroughs in quantum computation, Prof. Du Jiangfeng also described the significant breakthroughs of his team in quantum diamond probe. With nitrogen – vacancy defect in diamond as the quantum probe (“diamond probe”), they selected an important protein from cell division as the object for detection and applied the quantum technology to the research of single protein molecule, achieving the world’s first magnetic resonance spectrum of single protein molecule under the atmosphere at room temperature. The result was published at Science, a renowned academic journal. This magnetic resonance, in his words, can make the invisible things “visible”, which promises broad prospects of application in chemistry, materials, life, etc. “In my opinion, this research is related to and crossed with life sciences. If the exploration of life sciences can be advanced to the level of single molecules, we may be able to figure out the sources of many diseases.” said he.

Prof. Du Jiangfeng also made a brief introduction about his spinning magnetic resonance laboratory. They developed the spinning nuclear technology and spinning magnetic resonance test equipment, which provide significant support for their frontier work.

By the end, Prof. Du Jiangfeng gave detailed and patient replies to the questions raised by our teachers and students.