Xing-Zhong Li
Xing-Zhong Li | |
|---|---|
| Residence | China |
| Nationality | Chinese |
| Known for | Cold Fusion, selective resonant tunneling model |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics, nuclear fusion |
| Institutions | Tsinghua University |
Xing-Zhong Li (also published as X. Z. Li or Xing Zhong Li) is a Chinese physicist and professor emeritus in the Department of Physics at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. He is known internationally for his theoretical and experimental research on Cold Fusion and low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR), and in particular for the selective resonant tunneling model of sub-barrier fusion.
Biography
Li spent his academic career at Tsinghua University in Beijing, where he taught and carried out research in the Department of Physics and later held the title of professor emeritus. He originally worked in conventional ("hot") fusion and plasma physics before turning his attention, after the announcements of 1989, to the anomalous nuclear effects reported in deuterium-loaded metals. Gas-loading experiments to introduce deuterium into palladium lattices have been carried out in his Tsinghua laboratory since 1989.
Scientific contributions
Li is best known for the selective resonant tunneling model, which treats sub-barrier fusion of light nuclei as a resonant tunneling process described by a complex nuclear potential rather than by the conventional compound-nucleus picture. He and his collaborators applied the model both to the established cross-section data of hot fusion reactions and to the principal puzzles raised by cold fusion claims, namely the penetration of the Coulomb barrier, the near-absence of neutron emission, and the near-absence of gamma radiation accompanying the reported excess heat.
On the experimental side, his group at Tsinghua pursued gas-loading of deuterium into palladium as an alternative to electrolytic loading, and reported measurements of anomalous heat and of related nuclear signatures.
Publications
- X. Z. Li, J. Tian, M. Y. Mei and C. X. Li, "Sub-barrier fusion and selective resonant tunneling", Physical Review C, vol. 61, 024610 (2000).
Honors and service
- Chairman of ICCF-9, the Ninth International Conference on Cold Fusion, held in Beijing, China, in 2002.
- Member of the International Advisory Committee of ICCF-17.
- Member of the editorial board of the Journal of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science.