Though he personally refused to accept the title, he is honored as “the father of [the] Chinese Hydrogen Bomb”.

From 1949, Yu started his postgraduate research in the Department of Physics of Peking University, and also served as a teaching assistant.

Early 1958, with China-Soviet National Defense Contract, Yu and his colleagues including Deng Jiaxian, Sun Yuzhang etc.

In 1961 he joined as a member of the Light Nucleus Theory Group set up by Peng the previous year.

[4] Yu's major contributions included the solutions to a series of fundamental and critical theoretical problems of nuclear weapons, which led to the breakthrough of the hydrogen bomb.