National science awards are rarely trailing indicators of historical merit; they are leading indicators of state-directed capital allocation and geopolitical prioritization. The presentation of the 2025 State Preeminent Science and Technology Award to lithium battery pioneer Chen Liquan and radar expert Ben De establishes a clear blueprint for China's industrial and military strategies. Rather than celebrating abstract theoretical research, these honors signal a calculated emphasis on dual-use infrastructure, supply chain insularity, and the systemic mitigation of foreign choke points.
Understanding the selection of these two scientists requires moving past standard biographical narratives and analyzing the exact mechanisms of their technological breakthroughs. The recognition of Chen and Ben highlights a unified doctrine: the integration of fundamental materials science with industrial-scale manufacturing to achieve structural independence.
The Materials Vector Solid State Ionics and the Battery Supply Chain
The industrialization of lithium-ion technology in China did not begin with commercial market scaling, but with a foundational shift in solid-state physics. Chen Liquan established China’s first solid-state ionics laboratory at the Institute of Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences after analyzing solid electrolyte architectures in Western Germany during the late 1970s. This field governs the transport of ions through solid atomic lattices, a critical mechanism for bypassing the chemical instability inherent in liquid electrolytes.
The primary constraint of early secondary batteries was their low energy density and rapid capacity fade caused by dendritic growth in liquid systems. Chen addressed this bottleneck through a systematic decomposition of ion-transport dynamics. The architecture he designed focused on optimizing the ionic conductivity of solid materials while maintaining mechanical integrity under thermal stress.
The In Situ Solidification Framework
The transition from liquid to solid-state batteries faces a persistent boundary problem: high interfacial resistance. When a solid electrolyte is mechanically pressed against a solid electrode, microscopic microscopic voids restrict ion transport, forcing localized current concentrations that degrade the cell.
Chen’s development of the in-situ solidification strategy provides a technical solution to this interface bottleneck. The mechanism functions through three specific operational phases:
- Liquid Monomer Injection: The cell is assembled using a low-viscosity liquid monomer electrolyte mixed with targeted initiators. This liquid fills every microscopic void within the porous cathode and anode matrices, ensuring uniform wetting and a low initial interfacial resistance.
- Controlled Polymerization: Under specific thermal or chemical triggers, the monomers undergo an in-situ polymerization reaction directly inside the sealed cell. This process transforms the liquid phase into a dense, highly conductive solid or semi-solid polymer network.
- Interfacial Fusion: Because the chemical reaction occurs directly at the contact boundaries, the resulting solid electrolyte maintains atomic-level contact with the active materials. This structural configuration eliminates the mechanical gaps that cause high impedance in conventional solid-state assembly methods.
This approach underpins the roadmap for mass-producing next-generation solid-state batteries. It utilizes existing liquid-battery manufacturing infrastructure for the initial filling stages, avoiding the massive capital expenditure required for entirely dry, high-pressure solid-state assembly lines.
Sodium Ion Expansion and Raw Material Mitigation
The long-term limitation of lithium-based storage is the structural scarcity and geographic concentration of lithium carbonate reserves. Recognizing this supply chain vulnerability, Chen shifted a portion of his research framework toward sodium-ion chemistry.
[Lithium-Ion Path] --> High Energy Density --> Resource Scarcity Risk
[Sodium-Ion Path] --> Lower Energy Density --> High Abundance / Low Cost Baseline
Sodium shares a fundamental group validation with lithium on the periodic table but presents a significantly larger ionic radius ($1.02\text{ \AA}$ vs $0.76\text{ \AA}$). This size discrepancy causes higher volume expansion during intercalation, which rapidly destroys standard graphite anodes. Chen’s team engineered specific hard-carbon anode structures and layered oxide cathodes capable of accommodating the larger sodium ions without structural degradation.
By taking sodium-ion technology from fundamental laboratory research to commercial-scale deployment, China established a strategic hedge. While sodium-ion cells deliver lower volumetric energy density than premium nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) chemistries, their structural cost baseline is decoupled from global lithium markets, securing stationary energy storage and short-range electric vehicle supply chains against foreign resource constraints.
The Detection Vector Signal Processing and Air Dominance
While Chen’s work secures the energetic foundations of modern civilian and military logistics, Ben De’s engineering achievements address the operational requirements of national defense. Ben’s recognition stems from solving two distinct detection crises: long-range ballistic missile tracking and high-speed, look-down shoot-down aerial combat.
The Phased Array Early Warning Architecture
In the mid-1960s, China lacked the capability to detect threats beyond its immediate airspace, leaving it vulnerable to high-altitude reconnaissance and ballistic missile systems. Ben joined the development of the Type 7010 long-range phased-array radar, a massive ground-based installation that shifted the national defense posture from reactive interception to early warning.
The engineering challenge of the Type 7010 was scaling. Unlike conventional radars that mechanically rotate a parabolic dish to scan space, a phased-array system steers the radar beam electronically by shifting the phase of the signal emitted by thousands of individual transmit-receive (T/R) modules.
The mechanics of this electronic beam steering rest on constructive and destructive interference patterns, expressed mathematically through the array factor:
$$A(\theta) = \sum_{n=0}^{N-1} I_n e^{jn(kd\sin\theta + \beta)}$$
Where:
- $N$ represents the total number of antenna elements.
- $I_n$ is the amplitude excitation of the $n$-th element.
- $k$ is the wave number ($2\pi/\lambda$).
- $d$ is the uniform spacing between elements.
- $\theta$ is the spatial angle of the beam.
- $\beta$ is the phase shift applied between adjacent elements.
By altering $\beta$ at microsecond intervals, Ben’s system could steer a high-energy radar beam across a wide sector almost instantly. This capability allowed the system to track multiple high-velocity ballistic targets simultaneously while maintaining a continuous search pattern across the horizon. The Type 7010 required managing thousands of equipment cabinets and over 1,000 kilometers of control cables, forcing the development of new manufacturing standards for high-frequency electronics in China.
Airborne Pulse Doppler Fire Control Systems
In 1979, Ben shifted his focus to an even more acute defense bottleneck: the inability of Chinese fighter aircraft to detect low-flying targets. Standard airborne radars of that era emitted unmodulated radio pulses. When directed downward, the radar signals reflected off the terrain—buildings, trees, and waves—creating a massive wall of ground clutter that completely obscured low-flying enemy aircraft.
Ben solved this look-down shoot-down problem by developing China's first indigenous airborne pulse Doppler (PD) fire-control radar. The core mechanism relies on filtering signal returns based on velocity rather than distance, exploiting the Doppler shift:
$$\Delta f = \frac{2v_r}{\lambda}$$
Where $v_r$ is the relative velocity between the radar platform and the target, and $\lambda$ is the transmitted wavelength.
[Transmitted Pulse] ---> Strikes Target & Ground
↳ [Ground Reflection] ---> Fixed/Low Velocity Shift ---> Filtered out via Doppler processing
↳ [Moving Aircraft] ---> High Velocity Shift ---> Preserved as clear target signal
Implementing this equation in a compact, weight-restricted fighter nose cone required overcoming nearly 100 distinct technological bottlenecks. The radar hardware had to transmit highly stable pulses with minimal phase noise; any frequency drift within the transmitter would cause ground clutter to leak into the target tracking channels, rendering the system useless.
Ben’s successful deployment of PD radar technology equipped domestic fighter jets with the capability for beyond-visual-range combat. It shifted air defense from a posture dependent on high-altitude visibility to one capable of enforcing air superiority across complex, low-altitude terrain.
The Strategic Convergence Dual Use Intersections
Evaluating these two awards in isolation misses the broader analytical picture. The simultaneous honoring of a battery pioneer and a radar mastermind exposes the dual-use framework driving China's technology policies. The intersection of advanced energy storage and electronic surveillance defines the next phase of both commercial and military systems.
Energy Density Meets Compute Density
Modern phased-array radars are no longer confined to fixed ground stations or heavy naval vessels. Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) systems are now standard on fighter jets, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and missile defense interceptors. These radars require massive, instantaneous bursts of electrical power to feed their gallium nitride (GaN) T/R modules.
At the same time, the operational persistence of these platforms depends entirely on battery capacity. A long-endurance surveillance drone requires a battery pack that offers both high gravimetric energy density (to extend loiter time) and a high continuous discharge rate (to power the onboard radar systems during active scanning operations).
Chen’s work on solid-state battery architectures directly addresses this requirement. Solid-state systems offer a higher thermal stability threshold, allowing for tighter cell packaging and safer high-power discharge cycles without the risk of thermal runaway that compromises liquid-electrolyte packs under military operating conditions.
Space Based Surveillance and Decentralized Infrastructure
Ben De’s final research contribution involved laying the theoretical foundations for space-based surveillance radar networks. Operating radar systems from low Earth orbit (LEO) introduces extreme resource constraints. A satellite constellation cannot rely on ground-tethered power grids; it must generate energy via solar arrays and store it in high-efficiency battery banks capable of enduring tens of thousands of rapid charge-discharge cycles as the satellite passes in and out of the Earth's shadow.
The engineering crossover becomes clear: the deployment of space-based phased-array surveillance systems is directly throttled by the cycle life, safety, and energy density of the onboard battery storage. By advancing both solid-state and sodium-ion technologies, the industrial ecosystem provides the specific material inputs needed to sustain decentralized, space-based observation networks.
Systemic Limitations of the Honored Technologies
A rigorous assessment must acknowledge the significant engineering challenges that remain unsolved within these technical domains. Neither solid-state batteries nor advanced radar architectures are silver bullets; both face structural trade-offs that limit their deployment velocity.
- Scalability of In-Situ Solidification: While the in-situ polymerization approach avoids the radical manufacturing overhauls required by pure sulfide or oxide solid electrolytes, the resulting polymer-based matrices generally exhibit lower ionic conductivity at room temperature compared to liquid alternatives. This limitation often requires integrated thermal management systems to keep the battery operating within an optimal efficiency window, adding weight and complexity to the overall pack design.
- Processing Bottlenecks in High-PRF Pulse Doppler Radar: High Pulse Repetition Frequency (PRF) radars resolve target velocity effectively but introduce severe range ambiguity. Eliminating these ghosts requires immense real-time computational power to process multiple PRF waveforms simultaneously. In an environment where access to advanced logic semiconductors is contested, the physical performance of radar signal processors becomes constrained by hardware availability rather than theoretical design.
- Sodium-Ion Volumetric Deficits: The lower energy density of sodium-ion cells means they require roughly double the physical volume of premium lithium-ion packs to store the exact same amount of energy. This characteristic permanently restricts their utility in volume-constrained platforms like fighter aircraft or high-performance guided weapons, limiting their deployment to ground-based radar support systems, stationary grid storage, and low-tier logistics vehicles.
Actionable Resource Allocation Alignment
For enterprises and organizations operating within the technology, aerospace, and energy storage sectors, the strategic signal from the 2025 State Preeminent Science Awards requires immediate operational alignment.
Organizations must audit their research and development pipelines to mirror the shift toward fundamental materials independence and dual-use component convergence. Capital should be allocated away from purely incremental improvements in liquid lithium chemistries and directed toward securing solid-state manufacturing supply chains, with a specific focus on automated in-situ monomer blending and polymer processing equipment.
Concurrently, defense and aerospace engineering teams must design systems that treat power generation and sensing capability as a single integrated asset. Rather than designing airframes or surveillance nodes around off-the-shelf battery configurations, the electronic architecture must dictate the cell chemistry choice, ensuring that the thermal envelopes and discharge profiles of next-generation solid-state storage are tuned to match the transient power demands of advanced digital radar arrays.
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