Zhi-Xun Huang
Zhi-Xun Huang | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1936 |
| Residence | China |
| Nationality | Chinese |
| Known for | Cutoff waveguide theory, superluminal (faster-than-light) research, negative group velocity |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Microwave electronics, electromagnetic theory, wave physics |
| Institutions | Communication University of China |
Zhi-Xun Huang (Chinese: 黄志洵; born 1936) is a Chinese microwave electronics engineer and physicist, professor and doctoral supervisor at the Communication University of China (formerly the Beijing Broadcasting Institute) in Beijing. He is widely regarded in China as a pioneer of research into superluminal (faster-than-light) phenomena, and is known for his work on cutoff waveguide theory, evanescent modes, negative group velocity and critical examinations of special relativity.
Biography
Huang was born in 1936. He spent his academic career at the Beijing Broadcasting Institute, later renamed the Communication University of China, where he became a professor in the School of Information Engineering and a doctoral supervisor in electromagnetic theory and electromagnetic compatibility. He also served as deputy head of the Department of Microwave Engineering, and held an appointment as a visiting researcher at the Institute of Electronics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He convened the "Modern Fundamental Science Development Forum" in China.
In 1994 he was named by China's State Council an "expert who has made outstanding contributions". He received a National Science and Technology Progress Award in 1989, and a special innovation award in 2013 for his theoretical and experimental work on superluminal phenomena.
Scientific contributions
Huang's early research concerned waveguide theory and microwave metrology. His monograph on the theory of cutoff (below-cutoff) waveguides won a national award for outstanding scientific and technical books, and the mathematical formulation he introduced in it has been referred to by some authors as the "Huang equation". His treatment of cutoff waveguides included discussion of the existence of negative group velocity.
From the 1980s onward Huang argued that a cutoff waveguide may be regarded as the electromagnetic analogue of a potential barrier in quantum mechanics, and he used this analogy to connect microwave experiments with the question of superluminal signal propagation through evanescent modes and photonic tunnelling. He became an advocate of superluminal research in China at a time when the topic received little attention there, and published critical analyses of the light-speed constancy postulate of special relativity and of the inference that no velocity can exceed that of light in vacuum, drawing on experiments reported after 1992 in both classical and quantum domains.
In later work Huang proposed and developed the concept of "negative characteristic motion" of electromagnetic waves, and advocated a programme of research on "three negatives" (negative permittivity, negative permeability and negative group velocity, in the context of metamaterials and wave propagation).
Publications
Huang has published approximately 200 scientific papers. His books include:
- Introduction to the Theory of Cutoff Waveguides (截止波导理论导论), winner of a National Outstanding Science and Technology Book Award
- Theory and Experiment of Superluminal Research (超光速研究的理论与实验), winner of the Wang Ganchang Book Prize
- New Advances in Modern Physics Research (现代物理学研究新进展), a collection of 29 papers across five research areas
- Wave Science and Superluminal Physics (波科学与超光速物理), 2014
- Research on Superluminal Physics Problems (超光速物理问题研究), National Defense Industry Press, 2017
- Research Progress in Microwave and Light Physics (微波和光波物理研究进展), 2020
He is also the author of "Theoretical Developments and Experimental Examinations in Special Relativity", published in Engineering Science (中国工程科学) in 2003.