On this day, the 7 1 year-old female scientist from China won the 2003 L 'Oré al-UNESCO World Outstanding Female Scientist Achievement Award in Paris. Since then, China's name has been written for the first time under this award, which is known as the "Nobel Prize for Women in Science". Yu Wei, vice chairman of China Association for Science and Technology, later praised Li Fanghua: Many people don't know that this award is hard won, and it is the highest award for female scientists all over the world. She won this prize for China and also for women in China.
However, on hearing this news, many people's first reaction is: Who is Li Fanghua?
The reporter tried to find the answer from the internet, but there was not much information about her, and more than 95% were simple news about her winning the prize. It seems that Li Fanghua has always been an unknown person. However, opening the website of Chinese Academy of Sciences about her resume reveals unusual information in a few simple sentences: 1950 was admitted to the Physics Department of Wuhan University; 1956 has been engaged in basic physics research in the Institute of Physics of Chinese Academy of Sciences since she graduated from the Physics Department of Leningrad University in the Soviet Union; 1993 was elected as an academician of China Academy of Sciences; and 65433 was elected as an academician of the Third World Academy of Sciences. Up to now, she is still in the Institute of Physics.
In the course of basic scientific research for half a century, Li Fanghua was peaceful and lonely, with no noisy life, no attention from far and wide, and no ups and downs of official positions. In the post of basic scientific research, a China woman worked for 50 years.
Looking back on his own scientific research, Li Fanghua is very calm: "For some people, it is really hard to engage in basic physics research and need to be able to withstand loneliness, but I think it is actually very suitable for women. When I was at school, I didn't know that physics was difficult. When I do scientific research, I don't care about any difficulties. I didn't consider the trivial matters of promotion and winning prizes. I just do it wholeheartedly. "
Li Fanghua, who is "single-minded", creatively developed the theory and analysis methods of high-resolution electron microscopy and electron crystallography. She is one of the representatives of the establishment and development of high-resolution electron microscopy in China, and the first person in China to determine the single crystal structure of matter by electron diffraction. She first determined the position of hydrogen atom in the crystal in China, and it is still cited by foreign counterparts. In cooperation with others, she creatively combined diffraction method with high-resolution electron microscope, and created new image processing theory and technology in high-resolution electron microscope. She established a deconvolution technique based on the maximum entropy principle, which provided an important way to determine the crystal structure of tiny crystals. This achievement has been successfully applied to determine the crystal structure of high temperature superconductors and other materials.