Our faculty members publish their works in prestigious research journals. Take a look at what we have been working on here.
Department Highlights
MSc Applied Physics Admissions 2021/22
24 November 2020The Department of Physics now invites applications for admission to our taught postgraduate programme, Master of Science in Applied Physics, in 2021/22.
Online Science Summer Camp 2021 [Apply Now!]
22 Feb 2021Organized by the College of Science at CityU, the Science Summer Camp aims to bring together those who plan to embark on PhD studies in science and related disciplines.
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Seven PHY faculties listed as global top scientists
23 Feb 2021As one of the most progressive universities in the world, City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has a well-earned global reputation as an innovative centre for research and professional education.
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Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
Applied Physics
Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
Applied Physics
11 TOPS photonic convolutional accelerator for optical neural networks
Nature
Convolutional neural networks, inspired by biological visual cortex systems, are a powerful category of artificial neural networks that can extract the hierarchical features of raw data to provide greatly reduced parametric complexity and to enhance the accuracy of prediction. They are of great interest for machine learning tasks such as computer vision, speech recognition, playing board games and medical diagnosis. Optical neural networks offer the promise of dramatically accelerating computing speed using the broad optical bandwidths available. Here we demonstrate a universal optical vector convolutional accelerator operating at more than ten TOPS (trillions (1012) of operations per second, or tera-ops per second), generating convolutions of images with 250,000 pixels—sufficiently large for facial image recognition. We use the same hardware to sequentially form an optical convolutional neural network with ten output neurons, achieving successful recognition of handwritten digit images at 88 per cent accuracy. Our results are based on simultaneously interleaving temporal, wavelength and spatial dimensions enabled by an integrated microcomb source. This approach is scalable and trainable to much more complex networks for demanding applications such as autonomous vehicles and real-time video recognition.
Read more at Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-03063-0
06 Jan 2021
Low-dimensional Systems
Low-dimensional Systems
Observation of the Kondo screening cloud
Nature
In research published in Nature, an international research group has ended a fifty-year quest by directly observing a quantum phenomenon known as a Kondo screening cloud. This phenomenon, which is important for many physical phenomena such as high-temperature superconductivity, is essentially a cloud that masks magnetic impurities in a material. It was known to exist but its spatial extension had never been experimentally observed, creating controversy over whether such an extension actually existed.
Read more at Nature:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2058-6
The paper has also featured in CityU Research:
https://www.cityu.edu.hk/research/stories/2020/03/12/worlds-first-experimental-observation-kondo-cloud
11 Mar 2020
Education
Our Programmes
We aim to equip our students with knowledge and critical thinking skills that benefit them in physical-science-related careers and beyond. Explore our programmes below!
