Zhurong's roving radar reveals the superficial layered structure of the Martian Utopia Plain, and FAST depicts active repetitive fast radio bursts... In 2022, these 10 major scientific advances were voted and deliberated online by more than 600,973 experts, including academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, former directors of the State Key Laboratory, experts and chief scientists of the 3000 Program Advisory Group and Advisory Group, members of the overall expert group and project leaders of the National Key R&D Program, and finally stood out and were selected as the top ten scientific advances in China in 2022.

In the world of science, breakthroughs are like stars, why are they the brightest? Let's find out.

Progress 1: Zhurong patrol radar reveals the superficial layered structure of the Martian Utopia Plain

The teams of Chen Ling and Zhang Jinhai of the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, conducted in-depth analysis and fine imaging of the low-frequency radar data of the Zhurong rover traveling for about 4 months and detecting up to 1171 meters, and obtained high-precision structural layered images and stratigraphic physical information above the shallow 80 meters in the southern part of the Martian Utopia Plain.

●Reason for selection: Detailed Martian underground structure and physical property information is the key to studying the evolution of Mars geology and habitability, and is one of the important contents of Mars exploration. This study reveals the superficial fine structure and physical characteristics of Mars, provides observation evidence of long-term water activities on Mars, and provides an important basis for in-depth understanding of Mars' geological evolution, environment and climate changes.

Progress 2: FAST finely depicts active repetitive fast radio bursts

The team of Li Ji of the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, together with Peking University, Zhijiang Laboratory and the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, used FAST to discover the world's first continuously active fast radio burst FRB20190520B, which has the largest known environmental electron density and effectively promotes the multi-band research of FRB.

●Reason for selection: Fast radio burst (FRB) is the most violent explosion phenomenon in the cosmic radio band, the origin is unknown, and it is one of the major hot spots in the field of astronomy. In this study, the "Chinese Sky Eye" FAST depicts active repeating fast radio bursts in detail, constructs a unified picture, and lays an observation foundation for finally revealing the origin of fast radio bursts.

Progress 3: The new principle realizes direct electrolysis of seawater to produce hydrogen

The Xie Heping team of Shenzhen University/Sichuan University has created a new principle and technology for in-situ direct electrolysis of seawater hydrogen production, established a theoretical method of direct electrolysis of seawater by phase transition self-migration and self-drive at the gas-liquid interface, and realized the dynamic self-regulating and stable direct electrolysis of seawater hydrogen production by electrochemical reaction with seawater migration without additional energy consumption.

●Reason for selection: Hydrogen energy can be produced by electrolysis of water, and water resources are also the largest "hydrogen mine" on the earth, but the problem of high energy consumption and consumption of fresh water resources objectively exists. At the same time, the problems of side reactions and corrosiveness caused by complex components of seawater have always been major problems that are difficult to solve in direct electrolysis of seawater for hydrogen production. This study has achieved a breakthrough in high-efficiency seawater in-situ direct electrolysis hydrogen production, which has laid a foundation for solving the technical problems that have long plagued the scientific and technological circles and the industry.

Progress 4: Revealing the mutation characteristics and immune escape mechanism of the new coronavirus

The teams of Cao Yunlong and Xie Xiaoliang of Peking University and Beijing Changping Laboratory and Wang Xiangxi's team from the Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences took the lead in revealing the humoral immune escape mechanism and mutation evolution characteristics of the new crown Omicron mutant strain and its new subclass, and revealed the escape mechanism of Omicron BA.1 neutralizing antibody and its relationship with the structural characteristics of the viral spike protein.

●Reason for selection: The new coronavirus Omicron mutant strain and its variants continue to emerge, and timely analysis of how the new coronavirus mutant strain escapes the immune barrier established by vaccination and the human immunity generated by viral infection is crucial for future vaccine design and epidemic prevention and control. This study provides a theoretical basis and design guidance for the research and development of broad-spectrum new crown vaccines and antibody drugs, and provides an important reference for the prevention and control of the global new crown pneumonia epidemic.

Progress 5: Achieving high-efficiency all-perovskite tandem solar cells and modules

Tan Hairen's team at Nanjing University has greatly improved the efficiency of all-perovskite tandem cells through technological innovation. Independently tested by the Japan Electrical Safety and Environment Research Institute, an international authoritative testing organization, the efficiency of tandem cells reached 26.4%, creating a new record for perovskite cells and surpassing single-junction perovskite cells for the first time, which is comparable to the highest efficiency of mainstream crystalline silicon cells in the market.

●Reason for selection: All-perovskite stacking is the next generation of photovoltaic power generation technology. Perovskite tandem solar cells have unique advantages and show important prospects in the large-scale application of thin-film solar cells, but there are still technical bottlenecks in photoelectric conversion efficiency. This achievement improves the efficiency of tandem cells, develops a mass-produced preparation technology for large-area tandem photovoltaic modules, and significantly improves the photovoltaic performance and stability of modules.

Progress 6: New principle switching devices provide new solutions for high-performance mass storage

The team of Song Zhitang and Zhu Min of Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences invented a new switching device based on the interface effect of elemental tellurium and titanium nitride electrode, which has simple components, is easy to achieve massive three-dimensional integration, excellent comprehensive performance of the switch, and its life can be greatly improved.

●Reason for selection: High-density and massive storage are the key bottlenecks in the development of information technology and digital economy in the era of big data. The new switching device invented in this research institute provides a new technical solution for the development of mass storage and near-memory computing.

Progress 7: Quantum coherent synthesis of ultracold triatomic molecules

The team of Pan Jianwei and Zhao Bo of the University of Science and Technology of China and the team of Bai Chunli of the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, used radio frequency synthesis technology to coherently synthesize ultracold three-atom molecules in sodium-potassium ground state molecules and potassium atomic mixtures for the first time.

●Reason for selection: The use of highly controllable ultracold molecules to simulate complex and difficult-to-calculate chemical reactions can enable accurate all-round study of complex systems. The energy level structure of three-atom molecules is theoretically difficult to calculate, and experimental manipulation is extremely difficult, so the preparation of ultra-cold three-atom molecules has always been a great challenge in experiments. This achievement opens up a new direction for the research of ultra-cold chemistry and quantum simulation.

Progress 8: Ethylene glycol synthesis under mild pressure conditions

Xie Suyuan's team and Yuan Youzhu's team, together with researchers from the Fujian Institute of Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Xiamen Funa New Material Technology Co., Ltd., developed a new catalyst that stabilizes cuprous with fullerene C60 electron buffer, and realized the synthesis of ethylene glycol on a scale of thousands of grams of dimethyl oxalate under mild pressure by fullerene-buffered copper.

●Reason for selection: At present, the global annual demand for ethylene glycol reaches tens of millions of tons, mainly from petrochemicals. Based on the basic national conditions of "rich coal and less oil", in order to reduce the foreign dependence of ethylene glycol, China developed a complete set of technologies for the 2009,<>-ton non-oil route from coal or syngas to ethylene glycol in <>. In this study, a new catalyst was developed to reduce the dependence on petroleum technology route in view of the safety hazards in the technical route and the unstable purity and quality of the product.

Progress 9: Discovery of a new mechanism of micro-nanostructure induced by femtosecond lasers in complex systems

Qiu Jianrong's team and collaborators at Zhejiang University discovered a new mechanism by which femtosecond lasers induce the formation of micro-nano structures in complex systems.

●Reason for selection: When the femtosecond laser is focused inside the material, various highly nonlinear effects are produced, and the interaction between light and matter under such extreme conditions is full of unknown and challenging. The research results reveal the law of spatially selective mesoscopic scale phase separation and ion exchange induced by femtosecond laser, open up the new technology principle of femtosecond laser three-dimensional extreme manufacturing, and open up a new direction for a new generation of micro-LED devices, display and storage technology.

Progress 10: Experimental confirmation of superconducting "segmented Fermi surface"

The team of Jia Jinfeng and Zheng Hao of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the team of Fu Liang of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology designed and prepared a topological insulator/superconductor (Bi2Te3/NbSe2) heterojunction system, and finally realized and observed a special "segmented Fermi surface", which successfully verified the theoretical prediction of the superconductivity research community 58 years ago.

●Reason for selection: "Fermi surface" is a physical term that determines the electrical, optical and other physical properties of solid materials. The artificial regulation of Fermi surface is the most important way to control the physical properties of materials. In 1965, scientist Peter Fulde predicted that a special kind of "segmented Fermi surface" could be created in the energy gap of superconductors. This study confirms this prediction, opens up a new method for regulating the state of matter, constructs a new type of topological superconductivity, and opens a new direction for the study of finite momentum superconductivity.

(Reporter Yang Shu, correspondent Duan Shenglin and Cai Yuqi)