A nation's industrial development begins with junior engineers.

Chapter 702 The sun is shining brightly! Jiang Xia...

The next few days were busy for everyone.

Our Comrade Jiangxia has temporarily put aside the "test" from Master Lu, the "ghost hand," mainly because there's no rush...

Old Wang made a trip to the street office in the south of the city, temporarily relieving the "ghost hand" of his street-sweeping duties. However, the craftsman's tools, which he used to have, had lost some of their sharpness due to improper storage. It will probably be a few more days before we see his "answer."

Jiang Xia didn't have time to wait. He first finalized the pipette drawings after changing his approach and adopting a fixed volume design, and then quickly arranged for the production of a batch of samples.

Once the samples, along with other experimental equipment promised to Professor Fangzhou, were ready, they were immediately escorted to the "Spark Base" by fully armed guards.

Having settled this major concern, Jiang Xia immediately rushed back to his desk and began frantically sorting through his mountain of projects. Before heading out to "get things done" (referring to the planned research and investigation), he needed to get things settled at home first!

Yes, auditing work can't be done by sitting in an office listening to reports and looking at documents. Haven't you seen how advanced communication is in later generations? Even undercover investigation teams have to go to the front lines!

This principle applies universally!

After a few busy days, Jiang Xia is currently having a conference call with Dr. Lan Ying from the Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, listening to her excitedly report on the latest progress in integrated circuit technology.

"What?! The lithography machine... is already finished?!" Jiang Xia almost jumped up from his chair, his voice rising eight octaves.

On the other end of the phone, Dr. Lan Ying's voice betrayed her exhaustion: "We're about to start the final assembly and testing! The master craftsmen your factory sent to help are really skilled!"

Jiang Xia was delighted to hear this. It seemed that the "Mirror Immortal" had been working quite well lately. It would be even better if he could take on more apprentices and pass on his unique skills.

Yes, Yi Zhonghai was recommended by Jiang Xia to work at the Institute of Computer Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, before the Lunar New Year. Of course, the proper term would be secondment. A couple of days ago, Master Yi went back to the factory to make pipette pistons. In principle, it could be considered that someone else rushed back to help and show their "comradeship."

Jiang Xia was just about to happily accept Dr. Lan Ying's invitation to witness the "birth" of the domestically produced lithography machine when he caught a glimpse of the naval bigwig sitting on the sofa in his office.

This big shot was holding a teacup, seemingly relaxed, but his eyes were clearly like searchlights, firmly fixed on Jiang Xia, while his right hand was leisurely patting a large file bag...

And just now, Old Wang came in to remind Jiang Xia that "Ghost Hand" has already come looking for him with the exam papers...

I'm so busy...

In the end, Jiang Xia could only sigh regretfully: "Dr. Lan Ying, I won't go to the assembly site to cause trouble! I believe in the abilities of Master Yi and the other master craftsmen; they can definitely handle it! So, when it comes to the crucial step of final engraving and verification, I promise to be there to take a look! After that one look, I'll have to go out for a 'stroll' right away; people at home and outside are urging me to get back!"

"Alright, work is more important. Do you still remember the 'light-emitting device with a PN junction as the core and multiple functional thin films' that you submitted?"

"What kind of name is that!" Jiang Xia was stunned for a while before he realized that this was the LED light he had desperately exchanged for in order to replace the light-emitting diode...

"Oh...ah?" Jiang Xia responded, but then reacted even more, this time actually jumping up from her chair, causing the naval boss opposite her to spit out a mouthful of soda. The boss hurriedly wiped the water droplets that had sprayed onto the file folder.

Jiang Xia had no time to care about the big boss's embarrassing situation, and just kept asking, "Dr. Lan Ying, you mean... you really managed to make this thing?"

In later generations, LED lights are practically ubiquitous. But in this era, this thing is definitely cutting-edge technology! The reason is simple—the production of visible light LEDs, especially blue LEDs, is incredibly difficult!

The color of light emitted by an LED is determined by the band gap of the semiconductor material. Simply put, when an electron transitions from a high energy level (conduction band) to a low energy level (valence band), the energy released is equal to the band gap. The higher the energy, the shorter the wavelength of the light. Blue light has a wavelength of approximately 450-490 nm, and its energy is higher than that of red and green light.

If GaAs is used for red LEDs, a bandgap of 1.42 eV is sufficient, while for blue LEDs, a bandgap of ≥2.5 eV is required.

Don't understand the above? No problem!

Just remember that research on blue LED lights won the Nobel Prize in Physics; that should be enough to demonstrate its importance.

Jiang Xia quickly pressed on the phone, "Wait! Dr. Lan Ying, what kind of light did you... produce? Red light? Green light? Or... blue light?"

Yes! The most important element for LED lights to be truly useful is blue light.

You all understand the principle of the three primary colors. With red and green, you need to add some blue to obtain a white LED light source that can be used for lighting!

If the previous types of manufacturing were relatively easy, then the difficulty of manufacturing blue LEDs is basically comparable to the bald eagle landing on the moon. Well, we don't even know if it actually made it...

"No! We can only make red light right now! These use materials like gallium arsenide (GaAs) and gallium arsenide phosphide (GaAsP), and the processes are relatively mature. As for blue light, the wide-bandgap semiconductor materials needed are still under research..."

At this point, Dr. Lan Ying sighed and said with some regret:

"Although the information you provided suggested using a 'low-temperature buffer layer' technique to alleviate substrate mismatch, there are too many prerequisites. The red light source semiconductor we discussed earlier successfully introduced holes using p-type doping, but GaN is different. We only discovered at the very end of the experiment that it naturally contains nitrogen vacancies and has its own electrons..."

That's true. If it were that easy, scientists wouldn't have spent forty years experimenting on it before finally mastering it...

However, the road is right in front of us, and the future is promising, isn't it?

"Hey, we're almost out of gallium. The main reason I've been telling you all this is to get you some more; our reserves aren't enough for the next experiment..."

"Uh, this thing might be hard to get..." Jiang Xia lay down, counting on his fingers to see if he could trick the Russian into giving him some back.

"Yes, it's quite difficult. Right now, our annual output is only a little over one ton, and we need supplies from all over the place..."

"Wait, Aunt Lan Ying, what about our annual production? Can we produce this ourselves?" Jiang Xia interrupted rudely.

"Yes! It's a product from Factory 501. But there's very little of it, only a little over a ton a year. However, the purity is quite high, basically reaching 99.9998%."

"Factory 501?" Jiang Xia cast an inquiring glance at the naval leader.

"An aluminum plant! From Shandong!" The bigwig nodded reservedly.

Oh, case solved. This Factory 501 belongs to China Aluminum Industry, right? It seems that when the motherland was waging an economic war with the bald eagle in later years, she used gallium as an open secret.

Could it be that the foundation for gallium to account for 80% of global production in the future was laid from this moment on?

It seems that I'm not the only one working hard; the whole of China is putting in the effort!

Jiang Xia smiled, her eyes crinkling! "It's our own product, that makes things much easier."

"Okay, I'll apply for some. However, I still suggest that the research focus shouldn't be on blue LEDs. The important thing is to produce a batch of red LEDs first, so that we can replace the display devices on the current equipment!"

"Alright, you're the chief designer, so you're in charge! Although I can't see what use this LED light is right now..."

Jiang Xia put down the phone and rubbed his hands together.

Hehehe, Dr. Lan Ying, you can't see through this, can you? Putting everything else aside, just look at the low-energy display effect of LED lights. Guess if I replaced the display instruments on the old J-6 fighter jet with them, would this old man be a few dozen kilograms lighter?

More importantly, the key component of Jiangxia's "digital defense" system is the "KJ-1" airborne early warning and control system!

There are quite a few display devices on it. Even if only the instrument display is replaced with an LED display, he doesn't believe that the overall power consumption won't be reduced by 90% and the overall empty weight won't decrease by 6%.

In this way, we can extend the power supply margin of critical equipment such as radar, allowing our eyes in the sky to see for a longer time!