Pan, a professor of modern physics and executive vice-president at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), has done pioneering work “in multi-article interferometry and quantum experiments in space”, the society’s Fellows Directory says.
It also praises his team for having “closed major loopholes for secure quantum communication associated with imperfect devices, making it a viable technology under realistic conditions”.
Pan also featured on the 2017 “Nature’s 10”, the premier magazine’s annual list of the people who matter most in science. He had “lit a fire” under China’s quantum technology efforts since returning full-time in 2008 after training in Europe, Nature said, labelling Pan as “a physicist who took quantum communication to space and back”.
In 2016, under Pan’s leadership, China launched the world’s first quantum science space satellite, Micius, with a mission to establish a secure communication line between China and Europe, a fact mentioned also in the Royal Society directory.
The Royal Society bio also lauded Pan for his achievements in quantum computing technology. “His team demonstrated quantum computational advantage, validating the feasibility of quantum computing systems to outperform classical machines in solving specific problems,” his bio says.
The breakthroughs made by Pan’s USTC team are often reported by top academic journals.
Pan is also an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), China’s premier research institute, and is director of the CAS Centre for Excellence in Quantum Information and Quantum Physics in Anhui province, where he is based with the USTC.
The USTC is not only home to leading quantum physicists such as Pan, but also an innovation hub that has spawned many start-ups, thanks to steady scientific breakthroughs, a competitive talent pool and generous local government support.
The Royal Society, formally the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, was founded in 1660 and is the world’s oldest continuous scientific academy.
In 2022, George Gao Fu, then head of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, a leading scientist in the field of virology and immunology, was elected by the society for his contribution to the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.