Wu Ziliang

Wu Ziliang (; 25 December 1917 – 24 May 2008), also known as Tsu-Liang Wu, was a Chinese materials engineer, physical metallurgist, and physicist. He led the team that developed the essential membrane separation technology which enabled China to separate uranium-235 used for making its first nuclear bomb. He was awarded the Two Bombs, One Satellite Meritorious Medal in 1999, and also made significant contributions to steel metallurgy, semiconductors, and superconductivity research. Wu was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Early life Wu was born in December 1917 in Pujiang County, Zhejiang, Republic of China. He was the seventh and youngest child of his father, a Qing dynasty xiucai who later became a lawyer. When Wu was a child, his father died and the family fell into poverty. He worked as a cowherd for two years and did not attend elementary school until 1926. Later that year, he transferred to the Shanghai Institute of Metallurgy (SIM) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It was an essential technology for making nuclear bombs, but highly challenging because of the similar physical and chemical properties of the two isotopes. Under Wu's leadership, a team of more than 60 scientists developed the technology at SIM in three years. On 16 October 1964, China exploded its first nuclear bomb.

In the 1970s, Wu researched semiconductors and large-scale integrated circuit, laying the foundation for the production of China's first integrated circuit at SIM. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he made significant discoveries in the research of the superconductor yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO).

Honours and recognition For his achievement in nuclear research, Wu was awarded the National Invention Prize (First Class) in 1984 and a Special Prize of the State Science and Technology Progress Award in 1985. In 1999, he was among the 23 scientists awarded the Two Bombs, One Satellite Meritorious Medal. He also received the Ho Leung Ho Lee Prize for Technological Sciences. He was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1980.

Personal life In 1952, Wu married Xu Ren (徐仁), an English instructor at Aurora University and later Fudan University. They had two sons, Wu Kangqi (吴康琪) and Wu Danlin (吴丹琳).

Wu died on 24 May 2008 in Shanghai, at the age of 90.