Dai Chuanzeng

Dai Chuanzeng was a Chinese nuclear physicist who made fundamental contributions to China's nuclear research and industry.

Life

Dai was born on 21 December 1921 in Dayan Village, Yin County of Ningbo, Zhejiang province. Dai graduated from the famous Xiaoshi High School in Ningbo. Dai studied physics and graduated, in 1942, from the National Southwestern Associated University. Dai taught as an assistant at NSAU, Sun Yat-sen University and Tsinghua University. Dai topped the Sino-British Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program.
In 1947, Dai went to study in UK and received PhD from the University of Liverpool. In the 1950s, Dai went back to China. Dai was a researcher at the Institute of Modern Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.
Dai was the Vice-president, President, Honorary-president of the China Institute of Atomic Energy. Dai was a Deputy-director of the State Nuclear Safety and Environmental Control Committee. Dai was a director of the Chinese Nuclear Physics Society, an honorary-director of the Chinese Meteorological Society, and the deputy director-general of the Chinese Nuclear Power Society. Dai was a senior academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Dai died in Beijing on 18 November 1990.

Merits

Dai's early research focused on developing the nuclear detector of high accuracy, which is closely related to his doctoral study. He was a founding father of this field in China.
Dai's team built the first neutron crystal spectrometer, the first neutron diffractometer, the first zero-energy thermal reactor, the first neutron transmutation doping of monocrystalline silicon, first large-sized electromagnetic separator in China.
Dai is the father of the Chinese nuclear micro-reactor.