CityUHK scholar honoured with the 2025 State Natural Science Award
Professor Zhu Yuntian, Chair Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK), has been honoured at the 2025 National Science and Technology Award Conference. His research, titled “Strengthening and Toughening of Heterostructured Metallic Materials”, was awarded Second Prize in the State Natural Science Award. The project involved collaboration between two research teams: one led by Professor Wu Xiaolei, at the Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the other led by Professor Zhu.
Traditionally, it has been difficult to simultaneously improve both the strength and ductility of materials. Heterostructured materials, however, achieve this through the precise design of the size, morphology, proportion, distribution and property differences of different domains within a material, enabling its internal structures to work synergistically and effectively combine “strength and ductility” in a single material.
Professor Zhu noted that in the early stages, the concept of heterostructured materials was not widely understood or accepted by the materials science community. This prompted the team to systematically investigate the fundamental principles behind the strengthening and toughening mechanisms of heterostructured materials, leading to the gradual development of new scientific theories in the field.
Professor Zhu said, “After more than a decade of sustained effort, heterostructured materials have been developed into a major materials research field with broad recognition from the academic community, plus its study has now been honoured with a national-level award, which is tremendously encouraging for us. The new science of heterostructured materials enables metallic materials to achieve both high strength and high ductility simultaneously, providing a theoretical foundation and technological pathway for the design of a new generation of high-performance engineering materials. Looking ahead, we will continue to drive innovation in materials science and technology and make contributions to the sustainable development of the manufacturing industry.”
Professor Zhu is an experimentalist, whose research focuses on fundamental issues in materials science and the design of advanced materials that combine superior strength and ductility. He joined CityUHK in 2020 and concurrently serves as Chair Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Prior to joining CityUHK, he was a Distinguished Professor at North Carolina State University and led a research team at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States. In recent years, his work has focused on deformation mechanisms at the dislocation level and the mechanical behaviour of heterostructured materials and nano- and ultrafine-grained materials.
An internationally renowned materials scientist, Professor Zhu has been listed among the “World’s Top 2% Scientists” (both career-long and single-year impact) from 2023-2025, published by Stanford University. He was also elected as a Foreign Member of the Academia Europaea, and the European Academy of Sciences, and as a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society, the Materials Research Society, the American Physical Society, the ASM International and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His research "Cross-scale heterostructure design and strengthening mechanisms in metallic materials” received Second Prize at the 2025 Outstanding Scientific Research Achievement Award (Natural Sciences and Engineering Technology) from China’s Ministry of Education.
The State Natural Science Award, organised by the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, is China’s most prestigious award in the field of natural science, recognising academic excellence in basic and applied research in natural science.
In addition to Professor Zhu, Professor Wang Enge, a Senior Fellow at the CityUHK Hong Kong Institute for Advanced Study and Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, received recognition. The project “Full Quantum Effects on Hydrogen-Bond Strength and Dynamical Processes in Water”, which he led with a research team from Peking University, was awarded First Prize in the State Natural Science Award.
