Zhang was born into a peasant family in the town of , in
Hui'an County,
Fujian, on 9 January 1910. He had seven siblings. He attended Shihua School (). Zhang returned to China in November 1938. After the introduction of
Wu Youxun, he became a professor at
Sichuan University in
Chengdu. Six months later, he was recruited as a physics professor at
National Southwestern Associated University. In 1943, he joined the faculty of
Princeton University, he remained at the university until 1950. Then he moved to
Purdue University as a professor. In 1947, he found out in his experiment μ Subatomic and μ Emission of subatomic energy level transitions γ X-ray breaks through the
Rutherford–Bohr model and opened up a new field of strange atom research. After the founding of the Communist State in 1949, he repeatedly applied for a return license, but did not receive responses. In 1956, he and his wife finally received return licenses. He took his family aboard the "President Cleveland" steamship to
Hong Kong and returned to
Beijing. He became researcher at the
Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. That same year, he was invited to visit the
European Organization for Nuclear Research. He also served as a professor at the
University of Science and Technology of China since 1958. In 1961, he was sent to the
Soviet Union, where he worked at the
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research as a researcher as well as leader of the China Group. Zhang returned to China in 1964 and continued to work at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, where he was appointed deputy director of the
China Institute of Atomic Energy and director of the Cosmic Ray Laboratory. After this office was terminated in 1973, he became director of the
Institute of High Energy Physics, serving until 1984. He concurrently served as director of the Department of Modern Physics, University of Science and Technology of China between 1978 and 1984. He participated in the construction of
Beijing Electron–Positron Collider II. On 5 November 1992, he died of illness in
Beijing, aged 82. He was a delegate to the
2nd National People's Congress,
3rd National People's Congress,
4th National People's Congress,
5th National People's Congress and
6th National People's Congress. He was a member of the 4th, 5th and 6th Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. == Personal life ==