Special Report
Kang Lung Wang, Pioneering Scholar in Semiconductors
Dr. Kang Lung Wang, the Distinguished Professor and Raytheon Chair in Electrical Engineering at UCLA.
Professor Kang Lung Wang currently serves as the Distinguished Professor and Raytheon Chair in Electrical Engineering at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and is a world-renowned expert in semiconductors. In 2017, Professor Wang and his team of researchers discovered the Majorana Particle, a huge breakthrough that physicists had sought since the particle’s existence was first predicted eighty years ago. This discovery is a solid foundation for developing the topological quantum computer of the next generation.
After graduating from Taiwan’s National Cheng Kung University with a major in Electrical Engineering, Professor Wang earned his doctor’s degree in Electronic Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Since 1979, Professor Wang has been an Electrical and Computer Engineering professor at UCLA, where he has made marks in research fields such as spintronics, semiconductor electronics, and nanotechnology. His utilization of innovative technology to provide solutions for semiconductor electronics issues such as introducing the concept of spintronics to the CMOS industry represented great progress for electronics research. In 1989, Professor Wang established the Nanoelectronics Research Facility at UCLA, attracting top research teams to carry out nanoelectronics research.
Professor Wang is passionate towards scientific research. He has published over 600 theses and papers and owns over twenty patents. Since 1989, Professor Wang has received the Semiconductor Research Corporation Inventor Award ten times. Moreover, he was named Guggenheim Fellow from Max Planck Institute, Germany, and an Academician from Academia Sinica, Taiwan. He is also an IEEE Fellow, APS Fellow and International Materials Research Society member. In 2017, Professor Wang was honored by the IEEE Electron Devices Society with its highest honor, the J.J. Ebers Award. In 2018, he received both the Magnetism Award and Neel Medal from the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP), one of the highest honors awarded within the field of Physics.
Professor Wang also follows the technology development in Taiwan closely and is more than willing to pass on his knowledge and expertise to the next generation. He assists with projects such as the Ministry of Science and Technology’s Longmen Project, while simultaneously being an adviser for the Graduate Student Study Abroad Project and the Program to Upgrade Industrial Technology and Enhance Human Resources. There is no doubt that Professor Wang is a significant contributor towards expanding the horizons of Taiwan’s doctoral and postdoctoral researchers in terms of gaining international cooperation experience.