The head of Temple University’s physics department has been charged with giving sensitive information about U.S. technology to China.
He did not immediately return a message Friday.
[Past coverage: U.S. indicts 6 Chinese citizens on charges of stealing trade secrets]
Xi is an internationally known leader in the field of magnesium diboride thin film superconducting technology, according to a release from the U.S. attorney’s office in the eastern district of Pennsylvania, and “the fraud, it is alleged, was an effort to assist Chinese entities in becoming world leaders of the superconductivity field.”
Xi earned his doctorate in China and was a faculty member at Pennsylvania State University before joining Temple in 2009.
Xi remains on the faculty, a spokesman for Temple wrote in an e-mail, but “In light of Dr. Xi’s needs to focus on the matter at hand, an acting chair has been appointed to the Physics Department.”
In 2002, the indictment alleges, Xi participated in a Chinese government program intended to boost high-tech development and innovation. That year, he took a sabbatical and went to work for an unnamed U.S. company in thin-film superconductivity research. “During his tenure at the company, individuals there invented a piece of technology which revolutionized the field of superconducting magnesium diboride thin film growth,” and beginning in 2004 Xi began trying to get that technology, federal prosecutors allege.
With a U.S. Department of Defense grant, he allegedly got the device for a year with an agreement that he not reproduce or sell it. But prosecutors say that’s just what he did, repeatedly, benefiting the Chinese government and other groups. In 2010 he sent an e-mail promising to build a world-class thin film laboratory, according to the indictments.
Xi, who appeared in federal court Thursday in Philadelphia and was released on $100,000 bond, faces if convicted up to 80 years in prison and a $1 million fine.
