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Chapter 1141 A World Changed by Light (Third update, please subscribe)
Sometimes life is so wonderful.

A chance encounter can change a person's destiny.

The fate of many people has changed inadvertently, and sometimes, they themselves are not even aware of the change.

But unlike many people, Gao Kun knew that his fate should have changed that weekend.

On the first weekend of January 1957, he and 36 young master's students received an invitation to the official residence. In the smoking room of the official residence, these young scholars from various universities in Nanyang discussed science with His Excellency, ranging from chemistry to physics, from electronics to biology.

From that day on, the smoking room in the official residence became a place that many young scholars longed to visit.

It's not because it is the smoking room of the official residence, but because Your Excellency - Your Excellency is like an inspirer, always able to give them some enlightenment in their academic fields.

Gao Kun had a very intuitive understanding of this. At that time, he was exploring how to use light waves to transmit information.

Like many experts and scholars, Gao Kun also believes that the amount and speed of information transmitted by light waves will far exceed all current transmission methods.

Since King's Laboratory had successfully developed the ruby ​​laser as early as 1956, he combined the characteristics of the laser with the waveguide technology he was researching, and then proposed the idea of ​​a "laser guide tube".

With the idea in mind, the next step is verification.

At this time, Kao also discovered that lasers could not be used as a carrier for transportation, and this route was not feasible. But the rest were still at a loss.

That night, in the smoking room of the official residence, after Gao Kun mentioned his research, His Excellency smoked a cigar while thinking, and then said:

"Since we are using light to transmit information, and the laser cannot fill the carrier, then we just need to find another carrier!"

"It's not enough to just send light from point A to point B. That means we need a conductor to ensure and keep the light from point A to point B without any obstruction."

conductor!

Your suggestion at that time made Gao Kun's eyes light up, although he was still confused about the choice of conductor.

But at least there is a direction.

Moreover, you have also proposed using transparent materials as the transmission medium of laser.

Then Kao began to study transparent materials. He consulted a lot of information and found that the attenuation rate of transparent materials was too large and could not be transmitted over long distances at all, but Kao also discovered the problem.

The reason why the attenuation rate in quartz fiber transmission is too large is that there are impurities in the transparent material and it is not pure.

So the question is, if there is an ultra-pure transparent material - that is, ultra-pure glass fiber, then wouldn't this problem be solved?
Kao wrote this bold conjecture into a research conclusion and published it in a professional journal.

In his paper, he proposed that the transmission loss of light in optical fiber mainly comes from impurities in the material, rather than imperfections in the fiber structure; glass must be purified, and the transmission loss of high-purity quartz optical fiber can be reduced to a very low level. He also specifically calculated that the transmission distance of light in such optical fiber can reach more than 100 kilometers. He believed that it was possible to create an unprecedented transparent glass, although it was not clear at the time how to do it.

When many experts saw this paper, they did not react much. After all, Kao was just an unknown researcher.

And his idea is bold.

After all, glass is generally used to make decorations and utensils, and there is no ultra-pure glass fiber at all.

For something that they don't know whether it can be realized, few manufacturers are willing to spend manpower and material resources to research pure glass fiber.

This put his research into a passive state.

But just one month later, he received a call from the Schott Glass Company in Yongning, who were willing to conduct research in this area and to develop high-purity glass fibers, so Kao told them the standards that high-purity glass fibers should meet.

Schott Glass Company is the most prestigious glass manufacturer in Germany, producing a variety of glass products including optical glass. When General Patton's Third Army occupied Jena, like Zeiss, in addition to some equipment being dismantled, hundreds of technicians also went to Southeast Asia. Like Zeiss, Schott built a factory in Southeast Asia with the support of the company.

So there came into being Yongning Short.

We now have Asia's top glass company.

The entry of SCHOTT changed everything.

In the past two years, Gao Kun has devoted himself to this research. Even when he left the laboratory and returned home at night, he was always thinking about how to improve the transparency of the glass, what methods to use to conduct experiments, and how to use complex mathematical calculations to prove his theories. Whether he was awake or asleep, these questions still lingered in his mind.

It was not until a few months ago that Schott finally produced the high-purity glass fiber required by Kao.

After that, Kao returned to experimental research. Now, in the university laboratory, when the red laser passes through the glass fiber, Kao Kun smiles.

……

God said, "Let there be light!" and there was light.

Is there a God? It doesn't matter.

Light changes humanity!

When the laser passed through the glass fiber, even Gao Kun, the inventor, did not know how the combination of light and glass would change the world. At least in February 1959, the world did not know it. Just like two years ago, when Li Yian gave his acceptance speech in Stockholm, Zhang Jingye and six partners at GAD used light irradiation for the first time to obtain the first photolithographic integrated circuit.

They invented the world's first contact lithography machine. As the name suggests, the contact lithography machine is to simply and crudely cover the photomask on the silicon wafer, the photomask is in direct contact with the photoresist layer, and then illuminate it and expose it directly, similar to a camera.

However, the failure rate and cost of this lithography method are very high, and a photomask can only be used a dozen times at most. Therefore, the price of chips produced by GAD is often very high.

But the aerospace industry saved it. Although each integrated circuit produced by GAD is worth thousands of yuan, it is nothing for the aerospace industry - whether it is an artificial satellite, a spacecraft or a rocket, it requires a faster and smaller electronic computer.

Therefore, with the support of the Nanyang Aerospace Administration, GAD survived.

However, Zhang Jingye, the founder of the company, is well aware of the weakness of the company's products - they are too expensive. Even the Aeronautics and Space Administration finds them too expensive.
"We need a better lithography machine, which should provide cheaper integrated circuits!"

After obtaining the second round of venture capital, Zhang Jingye started new research while recruiting new people.

"Zeiss engineer, when will you arrive?"

In the office, Zhang Jingye asked anxiously.

"The appointment time is ten o'clock in the morning."

After the secretary answered, Zhang Jingye looked at his watch first, then nodded and said:

"Remind me at 9:50."

Afterwards, Zhang Jingye began to look through the materials in his hands. Two years ago, after they invented the contact lithography machine, several companies in Nanyang began to engage in research in this area.

Their participation has intensified competition while also driving the development of the industry.

In order to improve production efficiency and reduce costs, engineers made improvements on the original basis, adding a platform that can move horizontally and vertically, and a microscope for measuring the spacing and overlay between the photomask and the silicon wafer, so that the two can be as close as possible but not in direct contact during lithography. This is the progressive lithography machine.

The improved lithography machine avoids the contamination of photoresist on the photomask, but it brings new problems. Light has the dual nature of wave and particle. Due to the diffraction effect of light, the accuracy of the lithography machine has decreased. The longer the wavelength of the light source, the more serious the diffraction phenomenon. In addition to being limited by the diffraction effect of light, the distance between the photomask and the photoresist also determines the accuracy of lithography. The larger the distance, the greater the error between the projection on the silicon wafer and the pattern on the mask.

In order to further improve the lithography machine, Zhang Jingye thought of Zeiss. They are experts in optical instruments and perhaps they could give some advice to help the company out of its current predicament.

Just like that, time passed quickly as he flipped through the documents in his hand. At the reminder of his secretary, Zhang Jingye arrived downstairs. As soon as he walked out of the elevator, the Zeiss engineer also arrived.

"My last name is Xu Huichuan."

Xu Huichuan introduced himself and said that although he was young, he was also a very good optical engineer, which was why the company sent him here.

After a brief greeting, they walked into the elevator together. As soon as they entered the elevator, Zhang Jingye introduced his ideas to the other party.

"I understand what you mean. It's about reducing the diffraction effect of light as much as possible. Well, I almost understand it. It's not difficult."

Xu Huichuan, an optical engineer, almost understood the other party's idea and knew how to solve the problem before he even got out of the elevator.

Zhang Jingye was surprised:

"Isn't it difficult?"

"It should be very simple to realize it. It should be very simple. It is to weaken the diffraction effect of light during the projection process through the combination of optical lenses. This is not complicated. I basically have an idea..."

After exiting the elevator, Xu Huichuan explained his idea. His idea was not complicated. In fact, most technologies were like this. At the beginning, the technical difficulty was very low. In the other world, even until the 70s, because the lithography machine was not even as complicated as the camera at that time, there were dozens of lithography machine manufacturers, and many optical companies were involved, including Nikon of Japan. When Nikon's first generation of lithography machines was launched in , there were many problems. However, with the joint efforts of many companies, the technical problems were overcome, allowing Nikon to sell high-performance lithography machines to the United States in . Its stability and automation were even better than GCA. By the end of the s, Nikon and Canon had already occupied % of the market share, and ASML was founded not long ago in a leaky factory shed near the Philips office in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.

In any case, the threshold for many technologies is very low at the beginning.

Just like now, just over three months later, with the joint efforts of Xu Huichuan and several engineers from Yongning Zeiss, they equipped the lithography machine with matching optical lenses and successfully developed the world's first shielded lithography machine!
Light, just like that, has once again been quietly put to further use. What kind of world light will bring humans to... no one knows!
(End of this chapter)