On September 12, this year's "Future Science Prize" was announced. Zhang Jie, professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences and academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences won the Physical Science Prize for his achievements in the generation of accurate and controllable ultrashort pulsed electron beam by regulating the interaction between laser and matter, and the application in ultrafast time-resolved electron microscopy and fast ignition for research towards inertial confinement fusion.

Dr. Jie Zhang is a pioneer in developing methods for efficient generation of controlled, high-intensity fast electrons (~100 keV to 10 MeV) through tera- to peta-Watt laser beams. Since the 1990s, leading a strong team of collaborators from the Institute of Physics of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Zhang has made a series of major breakthroughs in the generation and application of fast electron beams.

The ultrashort pulsed electron diffraction and imaging device developed by Zhang Jie's team has achieved sub-angstrom (1 angstrom equals one billionth of a meter) spatial resolution, and improved the time resolution to a record 50 femtoseconds (1 femtosecond equals one trillionth of a second). With this device, they successfully observed photoinduced phase transition phenomena and the generation of novel states of matter.

Future Science Prize is a privately funded science prize established by a group of renowned scientists and successful entrepreneurs in 2016. The evaluation system, which mainly refers to the Nobel Prize, Turing Award and other internationally renowned awards, includes nomination, invitation, and peer review. The Prize is given in three categories--namely Life Science Prize, Physical Science Prize, and Mathematics and Computer Science Prize.

Translated by Zhou Rong