Abstract: ［Purpose/Significance］Under the background of interdisciplinary research, there is frequent knowledge flow between various disciplines. Exploring interdisciplinary knowledge flow is of great significance to the development, layout and planning of disciplines. ［Design/Methodology］Disciplinary potential energy is the potential energy determined by the relative positions formed by the citation relationship between two different disciplines in the scientific system, which can reveal the directions of interdisciplinary knowledge flow. This article selects the citation data in the Web of Science from 1987 to 2016 as the data source, constructs disciplinary potential energy networks among 63 subjects, takes both direct and indirect knowledge flow among disciplines into consideration, identifies the upstream and downstream relationship between disciplines from a new perspective of disciplinary potential energy, and explores the laws of interdisciplinary knowledge flow.

［Findings/Conclusion］It has been found that physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, clinical medicine, and computer science and engineering are upstream disciplines in the  fields of science, engineering, biology and medicine, playing a fundamental role and exporting more knowledge to other disciplines. In the fields of social sciences, humanities and arts, psychology, sociology, history and philosophy belong to the upstream disciplines with little fluctuation.［Originality/Value］This study uses the concept of “disciplinary potential energy”, takes the impact of indirect citations on disciplinary relationship into consideration, and sheds lights on the laws of interdisciplinary knowledge flow and research.

Keywords: Knowledge flow, Interdisciplinary, Disciplinary potential energy, Indirect citation, Disciplinary relationship