[1][2] In 2013, Xue was the first to achieve the quantum anomalous Hall effect (QAHE), an unusual orderly motion of electrons in a conductor, in his laboratory at Tsinghua University.

Xue is a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, vice president for research of Tsinghua University, and director of State Key Lab of Quantum Physics.

[3] In 2016, he was one of the first recipients of the new Chinese Future Science Prize for experimental discovery of high-temperature superconductivity at material interfaces and the QAHE.

He is a partner investigator in Australia's ARC Centre of Excellence in Future Low-Energy Electronics Technologies.

[8] Xue pioneered high quality thin films of topological insulators and, in 2013, first achieved the quantum anomalous Hall effect (QAHE), at Tsinghua University.