In 1957, U.S. Customs detained a Chinese woman and forcibly searched her luggage. When they saw the $6,800 in cash, they confiscated it directly, but the woman smiled secretly in her heart: "Money doesn't matter, as long as the pill box is there!" ”
Passing through the customs is a scientist, she is Lin Lanying, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, later known by the mainland as the "mother of China's semiconductor materials".
In 1918, Lin Lanying was born in a wealthy merchant family in Putian, Fujian. But her childhood was not as happy as the children of large families, and as the eldest sister in the family, Lin Lanying had to take care of her younger siblings.
As a result, Lin Lanying is more mature, calm and calm than children of the same age.
In that patriarchal era, Lin Lanying reached the age when she should go to school, and her family said that she would not be allowed to go to anything, thinking that girls would become "money-losers" who married when they grew up, and it was useless to study.
Sisters of the same clan also came to persuade her, saying that the ultimate goal of girls is to find a good person to marry, instead of wasting time on useless things. Lin Lanying did not think so, she used a hunger strike to exchange for the opportunity to go to school.
Lin Lanying's grades in primary school were always at the top, and when she graduated, she was escorted to junior high school by the principal. In the three years of junior high school, Lin Lanying also continued to maintain proud results. Progressing to high school, she became the only girl in her division.
In 1936, Lin Lanying was admitted to the Department of Physics of Fujian Union University, and because of her excellent grades, she was given the opportunity to stay on to teach after graduation.
In 1948, Lin Lanying was sent to the United States to study. During her studies in the United States, Lin Lanying greatly broadened her horizons, increased her knowledge, and witnessed the huge gap in scientific research between China and the United States.
Therefore, Lin Lanying secretly vowed in her heart to study hard and serve the motherland after completing her studies.
Lin Lanying studied at Dickinson College and the University of Pennsylvania until she received her doctorate. It is worth mentioning that Lin Lanying is not only the first Chinese to obtain a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania, but also the first woman to obtain a doctorate since the establishment of the university 115 years ago.
Because she studied solid state physics, after graduation, her mentor Miller recommended her to work as a senior engineer at Sophia, one of the giants of the American semiconductor industry, and Sophia made an annual salary of 10,000 US dollars to Lin Lanying.
But Lin Lanying has never forgotten her original intention to study abroad. At that time, on the other side of the ocean, the newly established New China was in ruins and in urgent need of high-tech talents from all walks of life, and Lin Lanying also received an invitation to return to China.
When Lin Lanying told the people around her about the idea of returning to China, she was mercilessly ridiculed and obstructed, they did not understand that Sophia's salary to Lin Lanying was 10,000 US dollars a year, while the salary given by China was 207 yuan per month, why couldn't Lin Lanying think about it?
In 1956, Lin Lanying applied again to return to China on the grounds that her mother was seriously ill and needed care, and the Americans cunningly asked her to take her mother to the United States, where medical conditions were better. But Lin Lanying was prepared and refused on the grounds that her mother was too old to run and that she was not satisfied.
Breaking through many obstacles, Lin Lanying's application to return to China was approved in September. In addition to the necessary luggage, Lin Lanying also wants to give New China a "gift", that is, her latest research results - silicon, germanium single crystal.
To know that this is the latest research results in the field of semiconductors in the world, bringing these two single crystals back to the motherland will greatly fill the domestic research gap and greatly promote the development of the domestic semiconductor field. But it's very difficult to bring it back.
After thinking about it, Lin Lanying put 150g of single crystal into a pill box, stuffed it into a suitcase along with $6800, and opened her road to return to China.
Sure enough, the US customs staff saw that she had an eastern face and her destination was Hong Kong, so they intensified their search against Lin Lanying. When they searched for $6,800 and the pill box, Lin Lanying's heart went to her throat.
But the staff obviously did not pay attention to the pill box, but took $6,800 and said to Lin Lanying contemptuously: "Madam, do you want to go back there to be Mrs. Kuo." Subsequently, looking down on Chinese, they confiscated the $6,800 on the grounds that the dollars earned in the United States could only be spent in the United States.
Faced with the illegal act of customs staff confiscating passengers' private property without permission, Lin Lanying not only did not calculate, but breathed a sigh of relief.
The staff who got the "benefit" did not plan to continue the search, nor did they open the medicine box, but just asked what was in the mouthful, Lin Lanying explained that this was the medicine brought back to her mother, and then the customs let it go.
The moment she got on the cruise back to China, Lin Lanying finally let go of her heart, for her at this moment, money is really something outside her body, and the 150g single crystal is the real priceless treasure.
After some twists and turns, Lin Lanying set foot on her homeland through Shenzhen under the careful arrangement of the State Council, and then arrived in Beijing from Shanghai, and finally entered the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
With the unremitting efforts of Lin Lanying and her team, Mainland China has successfully developed single crystals such as silicon, indium telluride and gallium phosphide, which has solved the problem of being "stuck in the neck" of Western countries in the mainland semiconductor field.
In 1980, Lin Lanying was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Lin Lanying dedicated her life to the semiconductor industry of the motherland, but she never married. In 2003, Lin Lanying died at the age of 85.
In that era of poverty and whiteness, it was precisely because of the patriotic scientists including Lin Lanying who gave up preferential treatment abroad, resolutely returned to the motherland to engage in research in various fields, and made breakthroughs, in exchange for our happy life today!
With this article, I would like to pay tribute to this "mother of China's semiconductor materials"!
Reference: Lin Lanying - semiconductor materials scientist and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences 20120912