A genius? I just love studying.

Chapter 217 You've finally decided to come out of seclusion.
"Oh?"

Although Chen Hui is already a professor, he has not studied as long as Chloe, nor has he ever studied abroad, so he doesn't really know much about the outside world.

"It's not just Sackley University; most Western universities are like this. The US might be a little better, where freshmen can apply for dormitories, but upperclassmen, even if they apply, need to enter a lottery to get a dormitory. Very few schools can guarantee that undergraduates will have a dormitory for all four years."

Chloe explained to her teacher, "In countries like the UK, even first-year students need to apply to universities, and the rest need to rent accommodation on their own."

“Even if the school provides dormitories, the accommodation fees are not cheap. It’s okay in small cities, but in big cities, a single room in a school usually costs around $8,000 a year, and a double room costs around $4,000 a year. The average weekly rent in London, England is £368, which is about 3328 RMB. This is for school-provided dormitories. Renting a place outside is even more expensive.”

"So even in the United States, most students from ordinary families are already heavily in debt before they even graduate from college."

"As for graduate students, it is assumed that dormitories will not be provided."

Perhaps because she had only been in China for a short time, Chloe hadn't picked up any of the bad habits of other international students, so she had no complaints about the school's dormitory policy. She felt like she had arrived in paradise.

Where in Western countries can you find such cheap dormitories?

You can't even find it in heaven.

"what?"

Chen Hui fell silent.

He always considered the 1,000 yuan per semester dormitory fee to be normal. Although it was a four-person or six-person room and the conditions were a bit poor, even after conversion, the price was still very reasonable.

"Apply for dormitory accommodation?"

Chen Hui silently noted it down, intending to discuss it with Wang Qiming, as he felt it was a very good policy.

In the future, only 30% of the dormitories will be prepared for international students, and they can apply for dormitories. Those with poor grades can rent houses outside on their own. This will also create some income for the local people. Of course, he hopes that this will not cause trouble for landlords.

As for the welfare benefits for international students, it's time to cut them. Let's cut them by 90% and see how it goes. Wouldn't it be better to use that money to give scholarships to our fellow countrymen and organize activities?

This will also improve the overall quality of international students, which is also beneficial to the school.

After all, without high welfare benefits, the worse the grades, the more expensive the education, and being far from home, many international students would not choose to come here.

This can be considered teaching according to aptitude; even Confucius, if he were alive, would praise him as a teachable child.

He made up his mind.

Chen Hui wasn't in a hurry to implement it. Instead, he looked at Chloe. The fact that she came to see him at this hour meant she must have a question she wanted to ask. If he wasn't mistaken, "Is it because there are problems with the industrialization of gallium oxide?"

"Yes, teacher."

Chloe looked dejected. "The industrial yield of gallium oxide is still very low, and the cost is too high. It simply cannot meet the standards for industrialization."

The reason why everyone is so excited about the discovery of gallium oxide is that gallium oxide can be grown into large-size single crystals through melt methods, such as mold-guided growth and casting, at a cost of only 1/3 that of silicon carbide, and the growth rate of single crystals is much faster. The growth rate of mold-guided growth can reach 30 mm/h, while that of silicon carbide is only 2-5 mm/h.

This means that gallium oxide has higher performance, lower cost, and faster production speed, making it extremely promising for industrialization.

Unexpectedly, due to problems with the preparation equipment, gallium oxide did not reach the theoretical low cost. Instead, due to yield issues, the cost was much higher than expected, and the production speed was far slower than anticipated. The current process is clearly insufficient to achieve industrial-scale production.

She had come to see Chen Hui before and talked about issues related to temperature control and material defect control. At that time, Chen Hui gave her some pointers, but it turned out that the problem was still not solved.

The crucible issue, however, has been resolved by Academician E Weinan. Using Chen Hui's model, they developed a new type of copper-based material that can withstand temperatures of 3000 degrees Celsius, solving a major problem in the preparation of gallium oxide using the vertical Bridgman method.

"Tell me more specifically."

Chen Hui asked calmly and confidently.

He is never afraid of problems being too difficult; in fact, having problems is a good thing.

Chloe took a deep breath. There were just too many questions, and she didn't know where to begin. After organizing her thoughts for a long time, she finally spoke, "The traditional LSW model assumes that the melt is an ideal solution, but gallium oxide melts contain defects such as gallium vacancies and oxygen interstitials, and the actual diffusion rate is 30% lower than the model prediction."

"In finite element simulations, thermal conductivity parameters are taken from empirical values. Gallium oxide has a thermal conductivity of 1.9 W/m·K. However, in actual wafers, due to impurities such as Si and Mg, the thermal conductivity fluctuates by ±20%, resulting in a temperature field prediction error of ±15%..."

“We also considered introducing machine learning and using supercomputing to train prediction models. However, in the mass production of gallium oxide wafers, defect data, such as dislocations and cracks, have low probability and high dimensionality. This results in 95% of good product data and only 5% of defect data. The model is prone to ‘overfitting to good products’, and the defect detection rate is as high as 10%!”

Academician E Weinan is an expert in machine learning, so it's only natural that he would introduce machine learning into the field. However, it seems that even this has encountered problems, indicating that the industrialization of gallium oxide is indeed not as simple as expected.

"Gallium oxide wafer growth involves multi-physics coupling of temperature field, flow field, stress field, and electric field. In the guided mode growth method, melt flow affects the temperature gradient, which in turn causes crystal stress. Traditional single-field simulation cannot accurately predict the process results..."

"Mass production lines require millisecond-level response times for process parameters such as lifting speed and temperature, but traditional mathematical MPC models require iterative solutions to optimization problems, with computation times reaching the second level, which simply cannot meet the requirements of real-time control..."

Chloe was clearly well-prepared; she knew these questions by heart and poured them out to Chen Hui like beans spilling from a bamboo tube.

There are far more practical problems than Chloe raised, but if one or two of these major problems can be solved, the industrialization of gallium oxide can be basically achieved.

"Let's go check out the lab."

Chen Hui stood up.

He didn't have any good solutions just from listening to these questions. He needed to analyze each problem individually and go to the lab to see what was going on.

"Teacher, you've finally decided to take action?"

Chloe's eyes lit up, but quickly turned dejected again. "It's all our fault for being so useless."

After the teacher completed the sample preparation, he let them conduct their research on their own. It was unexpected that they had dragged on for so long without solving these problems, which was indeed disappointing.

"You're still young, it's normal to encounter problems you can't solve. Not all problems can be solved. As long as you can still make progress, that's a good thing."

Chen Hui walked towards the Physics Department's experimental building, and took the opportunity to comfort his graduate student.

Chloe stared blankly at Chen Hui, unsure of what to say.

"young?"

"Have you forgotten that you're only seventeen this year, five years younger than me?"

Of course, she didn't say it out loud in the end. The feeling of riding on the back of the teacher's electric scooter around campus was so pleasant that she didn't want to break the spell.

Happy times are always short-lived.

The two soon arrived at the laboratory building.

Go up to the third floor and enter the laboratory.
There were many unfamiliar faces in the laboratory. Chen Hui knew that these must be the personnel sent by the higher-ups to assist in the industrialization research of gallium oxide.

Academician E Weinan and Yang Chi, who were busy with their work, did not notice his arrival until Chen Hui came to the control panel to check the data.

"what are you doing?"

"Don't move!"

Academician E Weinan's irritable voice came from the side, and Chloe subconsciously hid behind Chen Hui. Don't be fooled by Academician E's usual politeness towards Chen Hui; when conducting experiments, he was undoubtedly a tyrant. Especially when experiments didn't go smoothly, even ordinary people would become irritable, let alone Academician E, who was already like a volcano.

The others in the lab also looked over. They had already experienced Elder E's volatile temper. Their latest attempt had just failed, and Elder E was in a bad mood. They didn't know whose subordinate this newcomer was, but he was probably going to get into trouble.

"what?"

Chen Hui turned his head and looked over, somewhat surprised. It was the first time he had ever seen Old Man E like this.

"Chen Hui?"

Upon seeing Chen Hui's face clearly, Old Man E's irritation instantly transformed into a warm, spring-like smile, and he exclaimed with delight, "You've finally decided to come out of seclusion!"

"I've been working on other issues lately, and I just finished solving them and came over here."

Chen Hui said with a smile.

"All done?"

E Weinan keenly grasped the information in Chen Hui's words and asked in surprise, "You solved that problem?"

"If you're referring to Yang-Mills theory."

Chen Hui smiled and nodded, "Then, yes."

"You really solved it?!"

E Weinan exclaimed in surprise, unsure how to describe his feelings at that moment. Looking at the young man in front of him, he felt as if he were dreaming.

It took him a long while to come to his senses.

"Congratulations!"

Now, the debate about whether Chen Hui can win the Fields Medal next year will finally be over.

"Since that's the case, you now have some time, so come and help us take a look at these problems."

E Weinan pulled Chen Hui to the control panel, which was piled high with messy draft papers, clearly showing that Old E was indeed overwhelmed by these problems.

Who is that little guy?

The newly arrived researcher, Zhang Xing, looked at Yang Chi beside him and asked curiously.

He had been in the lab for so long, but he had never seen Academician E Weinan treat anyone so politely. Not to mention a smiling face and a gentle demeanor, he rarely even showed any calmness or composure.

"You don't know Chen Hui?"

"Is he Chen Hui?"

Zhang Xing was immediately filled with respect. He didn't know Chen Hui, but how could he not know Chen Hui? He was here because of this man who had developed a new type of semiconductor material.

He just hadn't expected Chen Hui to be so young!
"He's here! Our experiment is saved!"

Yang Chi, who had been equally overwhelmed, felt a sense of relief and his expression visibly brightened. Having collaborated with Chen Hui several times, he now had a blind confidence in Chen Hui.

Is he really that amazing?

Zhang Xing couldn't understand Yang Chi's change. He knew that Chen Hui was highly accomplished in mathematics, and there were probably few people in the country who were better than him.

But is he also highly accomplished in experimental materials science?

"You'll understand soon enough."

Yang Chi didn't say much; the facts speak for themselves.

Zhang Xing looked at Chen Hui, who was discussing with Academician E Weinan on the control panel, with a hint of hesitation in his eyes. He hoped that Chen Hui could really be as capable as Yang Chi said. As a researcher at a special national institution, he hoped more than anyone else that gallium oxide could be industrialized and mass-produced, and he knew better than anyone else what a glorious era that would be!

……

Chen Hui was already familiar with the experimental procedure and didn't need much explanation from Professor E.

The main control panel has more than ten screens, displaying real-time monitoring data for various parameters, such as temperature, pressure, gas flow rate, crucible rotation speed, and seed crystal orientation. Each screen displays not only real-time data but also the trend predicted by the model, as well as historical data, error data, and other dimensions of data.

Upon seeing these data, Chen Hui understood why this problem had troubled everyone for so long. Gallium oxide wafer growth involves dozens of process variables, and traditional mathematical optimization methods require exponential experiments (2 times) for full factorial experimental design, which is extremely costly and difficult.

Of course, ultimately it's because the underlying technological level supporting each process is insufficient and cannot reach the precision required for industrialization, which is why they need to find mathematical solutions to compensate for hardware deficiencies through software performance.

After figuring out these issues, Chen Hui looked at the various data on the screen again, and a different world had appeared before him.

The solution diffusion model deviates from reality, but it is only necessary to correct the thermodynamic parameters of the model. The reason why Professor E and his colleagues could not do it is simply because they could not find an accurate starting point and had not figured out the connection between the model and the actual phenomenon.

But Chen Hui saw it immediately.

After a brief moment of thought, he picked up a pen and began to scribble and draw on the draft paper.

Academician E Weinan stopped his incessant chatter and stared wide-eyed at Chen Hui. Although he knew that Chen Hui's arrival would definitely solve the problem, how long had he been there?
It only took ten minutes!

So he found the problem?

Although he also wanted to resolve these issues as soon as possible, it would make them seem incompetent if Chen Hui really solved the problem in just over ten minutes.

Chen Hui had no idea what Elder E was thinking; he was already immersed in the vast sea of ​​data.

The formation energies of Ga and O were calculated using DFT, and the diffusion coefficient formula of the LSW model was corrected...

A dozen minutes later, Chen Hui had obtained a brand new LSW model.

"Let's verify it."

He handed the model on the draft paper to Chloe.

Chloe paused for a moment before realizing what was happening, then took the model from the draft paper and converted it into machine language.

The entire laboratory sprang into action immediately.

Zhang Xing and the other outsiders watched this scene with great confusion. That guy only spent a dozen minutes calculating a model, yet he made so many of them spend dozens of hours verifying it.
Is this reasonable?
What puzzled him even more was that everyone else in the lab, except for them, started verifying it without hesitation, as if it were a matter of course.

He doesn't understand.

But for some reason, seeing these people's reactions, he was also swayed and subconsciously cooperated.

I hope he can succeed!
(End of this chapter)