September 23, 2025 -- Only last year MIT physicists reported in the journal Nature that electrons can become fractions of themselves in graphene, an atomically thin form of carbon. According to an MIT News story at the time, this exotic electronic state, called the Fractional Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect (FQAHE), could enable more robust forms of quantum computing.

Now two young MIT physicists involved in the discovery of FQAHE have been named the 2025 recipients of the McMillan Award from the University of Illinois. Zhengguang Lu and Jiaqi Cai won the award “For the discovery of Fractional Anomalous Quantum Hall Physics in 2D Moiré Materials.”

Lu, now an assistant professor at Florida State University, discovered FQAHE while working as a postdoctoral associate in the laboratory of Long Ju, the Lawrence and Sarah W. Biedenharn Career Development Associate Professor in the Department of Physics.

Cai discovered FQAHE while working in the laboratory of Professor Xiaodong Xu at the University of Washington. Cai is currently a Pappalardo Fellow working with Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics, and collaborating with several other labs at MIT including Ju’s.

The two independent discoveries were made in the same year.

“The McMillan award is the highest honor that a young condensed matter physicist can receive,” says Ju. “My colleagues and I in the Condensed Matter Experiment and the Condensed Matter Theory Group are very proud of Zhengguang and Jiaqi.” Ju and Jarillo-Herrero are both also affiliated with the Materials Research Laboratory.

In addition to a monetary prize and a plaque, Lu and Cai will give a colloquium on their work at the University of Illinois this Fall.