US drops wire-fraud charges against Chinese American physicist
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.029205
Science : On 21 May US government agents arrested Xiaoxing Xi at his home in Philadelphia, claiming he had shared superconducting thin-film technology with Chinese entities. A physicist at Temple University, Xi says he does only basic research, has only ever engaged in “routine academic collaboration,” and has never shared any restricted material. It turned out that government investigators had mistaken blueprints in Xi’s possession for a piece of advanced and specialized equipment, a pocket heater, that is used in the semiconducting industry. The experience has been a traumatic one, Xi says, and the really scary part is that “it could happen to anybody.”