With the support of the 973 Program and other programs organized by MOST, CHEN Xianhui Group and WU Ziyu Group of Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China，teamed up and discovered the large isotope effect in iron-based superconductor. This represents key progress in this field. The research findings were published in the magazine Nature on May 7th , 2009.

Since the discovery of iron-based high-temperature superconductor system, Chinese scientists, at the forefront of international efforts, has made a series of breakthroughs in the field. The group led by Prof.CHEN Xianhui alone has published 3 articles in Nature, and 9 in Physical Review Letters.