Jainendra Jain, Evan Pugh University Professor, Erwin W. Müller Professor in Physics and Penn State Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS) Cyberinfrastructure Faculty Advisory Committee chair, was recently awarded the 2025 Wolf Prize in Physics.
CiFAC chair named 2025 Wolf Prize in physics
Posted on March 20, 2025EDITOR’S NOTE: A version of this story was originally published on Penn State News.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Jainendra K. Jain, Evan Pugh University Professor and Erwin W. Müller Professor of Physics and holder of the Eberly Family Chair in the Penn State Eberly College of Science, was recently honored with the 2025 Wolf Prize in Physics.
Jain is the Cyberinfrastructure Faculty Advisory Committee chair within the Penn State Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS).
He was awarded with the Wolf Prize for “groundbreaking contributions to quantum matter and its topological potential that revolutionized our understanding of two-dimensional electron systems in strong magnetic fields.”
The award is given to scientists and artists across the world for their achievements in advancing science and the arts for the betterment of humanity. The Wolf Prize is awarded annually and in the scientific domain, acknowledges individuals in medicine, agriculture, mathematics, chemistry and physics.
Jain’s research uncovered a new state of matter called the fractional quantum Hall effect, describing it as a liquid of composite fermions or strange particles, which awarded him a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1998.
These composite fermions can form a superconductor under certain conditions, according to Jain. A superconductor, or material that can manage electricity without losing energy at low temperatures, has the potential to contain an even larger particle or Majorana which has the same mass but different charge.
These Majorana particles, according to theorists, could be used to perform fault-tolerant quantum computation, which allows calculations to run while correcting errors at the same time.
Microsoft announced recently that there has been a potential breakthrough in quantum computing based on these unconfirmed Majorana particles.
In a Q & A with Penn State News, Jain answered questions about his research on composite fermions which aided in his Wolf Prize award, as well as how his work relates to Microsoft’s announcement.
Learn more about Jain’s research on Penn State News.
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