Tongcang Li receives Bement Award for innovative quantum research
CTongcang Li has been chosen to receive the 2025 Arden L. Bement Jr. Award. Li is a professor in Purdue University’s Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Department of Physics and Astronomy.
The Bement award recognizes Purdue faculty for recent outstanding contributions in pure and applied science and engineering. Li is a leading expert in quantum sensing, levitated optomechanics and nonequilibrium thermodynamics. He is known for groundbreaking experiments in quantum information science and technology, including the development of a new qubit platform based on nuclear spins in two-dimensional materials, and advances in practical quantum sensing technologies. Li holds one issued patent and has two additional patent-pending technologies disclosed to the Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization, has ongoing collaborations with Toyota Motor Corp. and a semiconductor company, and he is director of the Center for Quantum Technologies, a National Science Foundation Industry-University Cooperative Research Center.
Li has previously been distinguished with multiple awards, including the NSF CAREER Award, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Experimental Physics Investigators Award, and the Purdue College of Science Research Award, and he has been named a Purdue University Faculty Scholar. He is a member of the Purdue Quantum Science and Engineering Institute.
“I am honored to receive the Bement Award and deeply grateful for the support and recognition from my colleagues. I would also like to thank my students and postdocs for their hard work and dedication,” Li said. “I feel fortunate to work at the quantum frontier, exploring the extraordinary properties of material defects and developing sensing technologies that enable applications we are only beginning to imagine.”
In research published in 2025 in Nature, Li achieved the first detection and control of single nuclear spins in two-dimensional materials, opening avenues for using nuclear spins in 2D materials for quantum information science and technology. His team embedded the rare carbon-13 isotope in ultrathin hexagonal boron nitride, then used magnetic resonance microscopy to obtain atomic-level information about the structure of the material they created. This quantum platform has several desirable properties, such as long coherence time at room temperature, qubit-qubit interactions that are easily manipulated and fabrication in a two-dimensional solid state.
Li’s work on spin qubits also offers a new pathway to enhance quantum sensing using 2D spin defects with plasmonics. Li’s team achieved record-high contrast for optically detected magnetic resonance and enhanced photoluminescence of boron vacancies in boron nitride using a gold-film microwave waveguide. The method he developed has since been widely adopted for quantum sensing with boron nitride spin defects.
His work in the field of optomechanics has earned him widespread recognition. Optics & Photonics News named his research on on-chip optical levitation with a metalens among the top 30 breakthroughs in optics in 2022. Physics magazine, a publication of the American Physical Society, named his 2018 work developing the fastest rotating and optically levitated nanoparticle one of its top 10 Highlights of the Year across all fields of physics in that year.
Li’s research offers significant real-world potential, which he is developing in industry collaborations. His work with Toyota focuses on quantum sensing for battery and catalysis applications. In addition, a leading semiconductor company is working with Li’s group to develop nanoparticle sensors.
This partnership also aligns with Purdue Computes, an initiative that encompasses the university’s research and programs in physical AI, computing, semiconductors and quantum science.
The Bement Award recognizes Purdue faculty whose research has made a significant impact on science and engineering. Established in honor of Arden L. Bement Jr., a distinguished professor and former director of the National Science Foundation, the award highlights innovative and influential contributions to global scientific advancements.
Li will speak at the Excellence in Research Award Lectures event from 9-11:30 a.m. May 6 in the East and West Faculty lounges in the Purdue Memorial Union. Registration is requested here.
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