Chong Wang: Explorer of Quantum Elegance

During his childhood in the Chinese city of Zunyi, Chong Wang was exposed to multiple world languages by his parents, who were language teachers.

But it was the language of mathematics that captivated him most.

His parents, spotting his early preference for equations and formulae over grammatical conjugations, nurtured his explorations. “My mother quite encouraged me a lot when she found out I had the appetite for it,” Wang recalls.

Their encouragement evidently worked. He went on to complete fellowships at both MIT and Harvard before joining Perimeter Institute, where he is using his mathematical prowess to research the properties of quantum materials.

Wang’s research zeroes in on a very particular breed of materials that he and his colleagues have dubbed Stiefel liquids, named for Swiss mathematician Eduard L. Stiefel, who developed the mathematics of “rubber sheet geometry” Wang uses in his explorations.

Stiefel liquids, Wang explains, are a still-theoretical form of matter in which the electrons are in a complicated, entangled dance across the entire material, fluctuating around a “quantum critical” point — an in-between stage akin to when matter is transitioning from one phase (such as a solid ice cube) to another (a puddle).  

Stiefel liquids are a form of quantum spin liquids in which subatomic particles interact on crystal lattices triangular “kagome” (akin to the star-shaped crest design seen on Shinto shrines.) In these settings, the lattice configuration makes it difficult for electrons to line up in an orderly way, so they become so-called “frustrated magnets” with electrons constantly fluctuating and interacting in a liquid-like state.

Quantum spin liquids were first proposed in 1973 by Nobel laureate Phil Anderson as purely theoretical constructs. But in the past decade, materials that exhibit quantum spin liquid qualities have been devised in laboratories. These new materials could prove extremely useful in applications from quantum computing to high-temperature superconductivity — innovations that promise revolutionary applications from communications to transportation to green energy.

Wang's journey into condensed matter physics began somewhat unexpectedly. Although he initially leaned toward string theory, it was during his undergraduate studies at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology that he developed a deep interest in the field. He later pursued his PhD at MIT and then became a Junior Fellow at Harvard University before joining Perimeter Institute in 2019

His work often involves studying the emergent behavior of systems that defy classical understanding, such as the fractional quantum Hall effect, where the collective motion of electrons can mimic particles with fractional charges.

Aside from the technological promise of quantum materials, Wang is captivated by the unusual beauty of materials whose bizarre properties arise from the collective behaviour of subatomic particles.

This phenomenon, known as emergence, is similar to how an orchestra’s musicians create harmonies greater than the sum of its parts.

“When you put it all together, it’s not just a piece of music — you see a picture,” says Wang. “As I dive deeper into it, I find that, from time to time, something shockingly elegant and beautiful emerges. I want to understand why.”