Latest News
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China Builds Extreme "super lab" to Assist Global Scientists in Probing Mysteries of Matter
Researchers adjust beam path at an experimental station of the Synergetic Extreme Condition User Facility (SECUF) in Huairou District, Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 16, 2024. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang)
What astonishing phenomena might materials reveal when they are subjected to conditions mimicking the extremes of the cosmos-ultra-low temperatures, magnetic fields that are hundreds of thousands of times stronger than Earth's, and pressure close to that at the planet's core?
The Synergetic Extreme Condition User Facility (SECUF), located in Beijing's suburban Huairou District, is opening a portal for scientists to observe the bizarre phenomena of matter under such extreme environments.
After starting construction in September 2017, the SECUF passed national acceptance review on Wednesday, marking the completion of the internationally advanced experimental facility integrating extreme conditions such as ultra-low temperature, ultra-high pressure, strong magnetic fields, and ultra-fast optical fields.
The facility, led by the Institute of Physics (IOP) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is a cluster of precision-controlled "extreme environment generators." It serves as a "super lab" for probing the frontiers of materials science. Here, scientists can explore the mysteries of matter and uncover new phenomena or laws invisible under ordinary conditions.
The SECUF can cool materials to an extremely low temperature of 1 millikelvin, which is 1,000 times lower than the cosmic background temperature. It is capable of producing a steady 30 Tesla magnetic field, which is 600,000 times stronger than Earth's magnetic field, according to Lv Li, the leading scientist of SECUF.
The facility can reach an ultra-high pressure of 300 GPa, nearly equivalent to the pressure at the Earth's core. It can generate ultra-fast laser pulses lasting 100 attoseconds, which is a billionth of a billionth of a second, to capture electron dynamics in real time.
Under extreme conditions, materials often exhibit "magical" behaviors. For instance, superconductivity--where electrical resistance vanishes--occurs only at ultra-low temperatures. Additionally, some ordinary materials transform into superconductors under high pressure.
Based on the SECUF, scientists are expected to discover more superconducting materials under high pressure, and even room-temperature superconductors, which is of great significance for improving computer processing speed, Lv said.
Strong magnetic fields and ultrafast light fields allow scientists to delve deeper into the microscopic structures and dynamic behaviors of materials, experts explained.
These extreme conditions can be combined based on different research needs at the SECUF, enabling advanced experiments in material synthesis, quantum control, and ultrafast dynamics, providing an unprecedented experimental platform for research in the fields such as materials science, physics and chemistry, Lv said.
The completion of the facility has significantly enhanced China's comprehensive capabilities in basic and applied basic research in the field of materials science and related areas. Researchers can conduct studies on unconventional superconductivity, topological states of matter, and novel quantum materials and devices, according to Cheng Jinguang, deputy director of the IOP.
This experimental platform is open to scientists worldwide. So far, 13 universities and research institutions from 10 countries, including Denmark, Germany, France and Japan, have conducted experiments at the SECUF, with some experimental stations already yielding scientific results, Cheng said.
Scientists plan to further enhance SECUF's capabilities while keeping its doors open to global researchers, to attract more pioneers to this "extreme challenge," unlocking discoveries that reshape humanity's understanding of the material world. (Xinhua)
The photo taken on Feb. 25, 2025 shows a corner of an experimental station of the Synergetic Extreme Condition User Facility (SECUF) in Huairou District, Beijing, capital of China. (Xinhua/Yin Gang)
Researchers work at an experimental station of the Synergetic Extreme Condition User Facility (SECUF) in Huairou District, Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 25, 2025. (Xinhua/Yin Gang)
This file photo taken on Oct. 16, 2024 shows a corner of an experimental station of the Synergetic Extreme Condition User Facility (SECUF) in Huairou District, Beijing, capital of China. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang)
Lv Li (C), the leading scientist of the Synergetic Extreme Condition User Facility (SECUF), talks with researchers in an experimental station of the SECUF in Huairou District, Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 26, 2025. (Xinhua/Yin Gang)
Lv Li, the leading scientist of the Synergetic Extreme Condition User Facility (SECUF), works in an experimental station of the SECUF in Huairou District, Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 26, 2025. (Xinhua/Yin Gang)
Lv Li, the leading scientist of the Synergetic Extreme Condition User Facility (SECUF), works at an experimental station of the SECUF in Huairou District, Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 26, 2025. (Xinhua/Yin Gang)
This photo shows a scene during the national acceptance review of the Synergetic Extreme Condition User Facility (SECUF) in Huairou District, Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 26, 2025. (Xinhua/Yin Gang)
A researcher places a sample for analysis at an experimental station of the Synergetic Extreme Condition User Facility (SECUF) in Huairou District, Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 16, 2024. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang)
Source: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Read more: The Synergetic Extreme Condition User Facility
Editor:Gao Yuan
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Research News
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Breakthrough: CP Violation Established in Bayron Decays
At the 59th “Rencontres de Moriond EW", the LHCb collaboration announced a landmark discovery: the first observation of Charge-Parity (CP) violation in baryon decays. This breakthrough may provide further insight into one of the universe’s most profound mysteries: why matter dominates over antimatter. The research team led by Professor Zheng Yangheng and Qian Wenbin from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS) played an important role in this achievement.
According to the Big Bang theory, matter and antimatter should have been created in equal amounts 13.8 billion years ago. Yet today, our universe is made almost entirely of matter. CP violation—a subtle asymmetry in how particles and antiparticles behave—is essential to explain this imbalance. While CP violation was first detected in mesons (particles made of quark-antiquark pairs) in 1964 (a discovery awarded the Nobel Prize), it had never been observed in baryons (three-quark particles like protons and neutrons) until now.
The LHCb team, including UCAS scientists, analyzed proton-proton collision data from the LHCb detector and observed a statistically significant difference (exceeding five standard deviations) between the decay rates of bottom baryons and anti-bottom baryons. This definitive sign of CP violation in baryon decays fills a six-decade gap in particle physics. Baryons, the building blocks of visible matter, may hold the key to understanding the universe’s matter-antimatter asymmetry. This discovery not only confirms a key prediction of the Standard Model but also opens new avenues to explore physics beyond it.
Figure 1: LHCb data showing the asymmetry between (left) bottom baryon and (right) anti-bottom baryon decays, marking the first discovery of CP violation in baryon decays.
The LHCb collaboration comprises approximately 1,800 researchers from 100 institutions across 24 countries. Since joining in 2015, researchers from UCAS have made significant contributions, including precision measurements of CP-violation phases, hadron spectroscopy studies, and investigations into heavy-flavor hadron production. Their work has led to several important discoveries, including a new type of CP violation in charmless three-body B decays and the observation of hadronic states like the double-charmed baryon and doubly charged tetraquark.
“To track down CP violation in baryon decays, we first identified all the potential decay channels and worked together with collaborators to analyze each one”, explained Associate Professor Qian Wenbin. “Completing these studies required more than a decade of dedicated work”, said Professor Zheng Yangheng. Beyond the current breakthrough, their team recently reported evidence of CP violation in a specific three-body baryon decay mode, published as an Editor's Suggestion in Physical Review Letters (March 12, 2025), and featured in Physics.
The definitive observation of CP violation in baryons opens a new window for future studies. With further upgrades of the detector, physicists in the LHCb collaboration are now poised to study CP violation with unprecedented precision. These advances could help us reconstruct the pivotal moments 13.8 billion years ago that determined the survival of matter over antimatter, bringing us closer to solving one of science's greatest mysteries.
Further readings:
LHCb preprint on discovery of CP violation in baryon decays：https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.16954
LHCb publication on evidence of CP violation in baryon decays：https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.134.101802
News from APS：https://physics.aps.org/articles/v18/56
LHCb news：https://lhcb-outreach.web.cern.ch/2025/03/25/observation-of-the-different-behaviour-of-baryonic-matter-and-antimatter/ and https://lhcb-outreach.web.cern.ch/2024/11/08/
CERN news：https://home.cern/news/press-release/physics/new-piece-matter-antimatter-puzzle
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