Semiconductor chips, a topic that has always made the Chinese people like a fish in the throat. But some friends said that if there is no "ten years of civil strife", the chip may be stuck in the neck of the United States.
This is also true. In those turbulent times, research at the National Semiconductor Institute was almost at a standstill. Although foreign research was not much better at that time, this decade of stagnation made us miss the opportunity to lead.
Fortunately, after the end of the turmoil, the National Semiconductor Institute immediately began to fill in the leaks and catch up with the work, so that our gap was not widened. And perhaps all this is due to one person.
Who is he?
He is Academician Huang Kun, known as the "Father of Chinese Semiconductors"!
On October 1, 1949, the People's Republic of China was founded. After Huang Kun, who studied at the University of Brestore in the United Kingdom, learned the news, he immediately decided to return to the embrace of the motherland and devote himself to the cause of new China construction.
At the end of 1951, Huang Kun interrupted the ongoing research project, refused the request of his teachers and friends to stay, did not covet the british life, packed his bags and took a boat through Hong Kong to return to the motherland.
When Huang Kun returned to China, he already knew in his heart that what would happen next was a hard life of more than ten or even decades. So his bag was simple, except for the necessary clothes, and only brought two large pieces, one was a bicycle; the other was a typewriter. Academician Huang Kun's bicycle was used until he was old and could not ride it before choosing to put it aside; the typewriter was also used from the 1950s to the 21st century. Of course, these are all afterwords.
Shortly after returning to China, Huang Kun opened two courses for undergraduate students, statistical physics and modern physics, in the Department of Physics of Peking University, and devoted himself to teaching work.
If you put it to today, Huang Kun can definitely be regarded as a "net red professor", he is precise and thorough in his lectures, and will not wrap a concept or definition gorgeously, so that students seem to understand it. At the same time, he is also good at provoking students to think, and the teaching process is also humorous and funny.
For example, one day when Huang Kun was teaching, he accidentally fell off the steps, and he quipped: "umklapp (the process of reversing crystals), if I were an electron, I would have gone there!" The students laughed.
Another time, Huang Kun woke up and found himself losing a large piece of hair. The next morning when he went to class, he first took off his hat and put it on the podium, saying, "Lest you laugh and affect the quality of teaching!" The students at the bottom laughed at his humor.
From huang kun's return to China to teach until the eve of 1966, the interference caused by various "movements" and "criticisms" has been continuous, and the normal teaching work of Peking University teachers has been greatly affected. However, Huang Kun still relied on his own efforts to cultivate a large number of talents for the motherland, and at the same time established China's own teaching system of solid state physics and semiconductor physics, and began to try the combination of teaching and scientific research.
During this period, he cultivated many outstanding semiconductor graduates, and it can be said that the Chinese engaged in semiconductor research today can be regarded as his apprentices.
But by 1966, a catastrophe had quietly begun.
In 1966, ten years of civil unrest began, and Huang Kun was inevitably affected.
On weekdays, Huang Kun only wants to be a teacher who has no political ambitions and spends all his time cultivating talents for the country. Once, when a professor was graded, he could have been rated as a "first-level professor", but he took the initiative to ask to be rated as a "second-level professor". Later, although he took the salary of a second-level professor, his life was no different from that of ordinary people.
But such a person was also required to undergo labor reform. On the cold days in Beijing, he also had to carry a sledgehammer to plan the frozen soil. When he got home, he and his wife had to sleep on the floor because the mattress was confiscated.
Group photo of Huang Kun, Yang Zhenning and others
Yang Zhenning once wrote an inscription in his new book, entrusting people to bring it to Huang Kun. It reads: To Huang Kun: Commemorating the time when we learned the mysteries of modern physics together. The passionate friendships that were formed at that time did not fade away in isolation from time and space.
However, the inscription also disappeared in the turmoil.
It is worth mentioning here that Huang Kun's wife, Li Aifu. Li Aifu, whose original name was Ive Rees, was a Native of Welsh, England. While in the UK, the two worked together, supported each other, and both impressed each other.
In 1952, shortly after Huang Kun returned to China, Reese also overcame many difficulties and followed Huang Kun to China. After Reese came to China, Huang Kun's brother gave Reese a consonant name: Li Aifu.
Later, Li Aifu chose to become a Chinese citizen and did not abandon Huang Kun. The British government and her family repeatedly advised her to give up, but none of them dispelled her firm convictions.
Since 1959, Li Aifu has worked in the Department of Physics of Peking University, and together with Huang Kun, he has been diligent and earnest, and has made great contributions to the development of the Department of Physics of Peking University, and the "Huang-Rees Theory" was jointly proposed by them. When she got older, the students respected her so much that they often called her "Mr. Lee." ”
In that turbulent era, Huang Kun and his wife were treated very unfairly, with wages deducted, quarantined for review, asked to move out of the apartment, to work as welders... But none of this frustrates Huang Kun's initial beliefs, he said:
"Despite the unfair treatment, I still have to work hard to do as much work as possible for the motherland, after all, the motherland has made me."
In 1975, at a conference, Deng Xiaoping said the following passage:
"There is an old scientist, engaged in semiconductors, Peking University called it to teach other things, it will not, the Academy of Sciences Semiconductor Institute asked him to make an academic report, the response is very good, he said that this is amateur research. This kind of use of non-learned people is a large number, and they should play their role, otherwise it will be the greatest waste for the country. He was a member of the Faculty and a well-known figure in the country, and this was such an encounter. Why didn't you tell him to do it? Peking University does not need him, can be transferred to the semiconductor institute as the director, to assign him logistics personnel. ”
In 1976, Huang Kun was appointed director of the Institute of Semiconductors of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. After decades, he finally returned to the front line of scientific research after a long absence.
However, under the devastation of years of domestic turmoil, the scientific research work of the Institute of Semiconductors has almost stopped, and there is no decent research team in the Institute. After Huang Kun passed, he decided to let the researchers' research and learning go hand in hand.
Just do it! Every Sunday, Huang Kun would hang a sign in front of his home that read "Huang Kun is not at home". In fact, it was not that he was not at home, but that he was nervously preparing lessons for the people in the office, not wanting to be disturbed by the knock on the door.
Since the beginning of 1978, Huang Kun has spent half a day every week to explain the basic theory of semiconductor physics to researchers, and has been talking for 10 months, which has greatly improved the academic level of all the staff of the institute. If you open the lecture notes prepared by Huang Kun for these 10 months, the viewers will not be moved.
After returning to the front line of scientific research, Huang Kun led scientific researchers and made remarkable achievements. For example, the "Huang-Zhu model" was proposed, the State Key Laboratory of Semiconductor Superlattices in China was built, and a new field of materials science and solid state physics in China was created.
Caldona, an internationally renowned solid state physicist, commented: The second half of his life is like a phoenix nirvana, flying from the ashes and reaching the peak of the world's solid state physics community.
Huang Kun has achieved many achievements, and it can be said that he has received all the honors except the Nobel Prize. But he did not show publicity in his life, only like ordinary people, and what he loved to do most was to bury his head in cultivation and contribute to China's scientific and technological cause.
For example, after becoming the director of the Semiconductor Institute in 1977, Huang Kun felt that he was carrying a lot of ideological baggage. The next year, Huang Kun reported to the leadership that he could not take on this heavy responsibility and only wanted to go to the laboratory. He said:
"Some people are born to be marshals, and some people are born to be creeps. I was born to be a creep on the front line. When the creeps are going to shoot, shoot bullets, and let the bullets fly out. ”
Huang Kun is like this, in the eyes of others, he is a grandmaster and a national soldier. But when he got there, he became a small soldier, a small soldier who did not seek fame and quietly cultivated, but only wanted to rush to the front line of scientific research.
In 2001, Huang Kun won the country's highest science and technology award, and at 16:18 on July 6, 2005, Huang Kun died in Beijing at the age of 86.
On the occasion of the centenary of Academician Huang Kun's birth, Yang Zhenning praised:
"Huang Equation, Huang Boshu, leading the physics of phononics; self-discipline, diligence, can be called a generation of masters."
Topic: Do you have anything to say to Academician Huang Kun?