Courtyard House: Starting with a 28-inch motorcycle

The experience of the last time I went to the lab for training is still vivid in my mind: facial recognition for entry and exit, clocking in and out, adjusting parameters during the day and rushing to finish assignments at night. I hadn't even been in a relationship yet, but I had already experienced all the hardships and joys of scientific research.

"I'll submit the application to you next month and try to form a 'four-person task force'," Xiao Yao deliberately dragged out his words.

The two of them shivered simultaneously.

As the two waved goodbye, Xiao Yao jumped into the jeep, the wheels kicking up a cloud of dust as it sped away.

The jeep drove into a heavily guarded military camp—ostensibly an ordinary training base, but in reality, it concealed several cutting-edge laboratories underground, and even the wind carried the scent of metal and electricity.

A technician in a white coat greeted him and led him through several heavy blast doors to a private single room. He was told that once Professor Li and his team arrived the next day, someone would come to take him to the experimental area.

As soon as the dormitory door closed, Xiao Yao breathed a long sigh of relief. In the past, when he lived with several other people, he always had to sneak into the system space at the right time, for fear of being caught; now that no one was around, he lay down on the bed, and with a slight thought, he was already immersed in the virtual sea of ​​learning.

His most pressing task right now is to finish mastering the core university courses before the experiment starts—the formulas, models, and band diagrams that come flooding in from the lab are simply too much to handle without a solid foundation.

After class, Su Man went straight to the dormitory building, her steps light but with a hint of urgency.

"Xiao Yao went to the experimental base with Professor Li, but he didn't say exactly where. I estimate he won't be back for a few days." Wang Yutong placed her water glass on the windowsill, her tone calm.

"Did they mention when they would contact you?" Su Man pressed.

"I told you, I'll definitely call you tonight." Wang Yutong relayed Xiao Yao's words verbatim.

"Thank you!" Su Man smiled and nodded, then turned and pushed open the door to leave.

When she got home, she didn't turn on the TV or check her phone. Instead, she sat down next to the telephone with a book called "Principles of Optics," turning the pages very slowly, as if waiting for a pre-arranged rhythm.

"Xiaoman, are you glued to the phone again? Xiao Yao, that kid, is probably off doing research in some remote mountain village again, isn't he?" Su's mother came in carrying apples and immediately saw through the quietness in her daughter's eyes.

Before he could finish speaking, the phone rang crisply.

Su Man reached for the receiver, her fingertips slightly warm: "Hello, it's me."

"It's me, Xiao Yao." The voice on the other end was slightly hoarse, with the faint hum of instruments in the background. "This is a closed photovoltaic experiment. I can't tell you the location, but I'll definitely call you every night at eight o'clock."

The two chatted for ten minutes. Xiao Yao spoke slowly but clearly. Before hanging up, he heard three soft knocks on the door—a signal that it was the next team member's turn to report that they were safe.

Back in his dorm, he didn't turn on the lights, but lay back on his bed, his consciousness sliding into the system space.

Despite his earlier creation of that solar-powered toy train, he still has a vague understanding of the underlying logic of solar energy conversion.

This national key research project focuses on a megawatt-scale photovoltaic power station—once completed, it could power an entire medium-sized city. Energy conservation and carbon reduction are not just empty words, but a mission etched into every silicon wafer.

In comparison, his creaky little train was at best a fancy toy.

The professors whispered among themselves: Where did this kid get his intuition? He's never taken any specialized courses, yet he can build a complete optoelectronic circuit just by feel? The word "talent" is absolutely true.

Xiao Yao knew that a flash of inspiration was far from enough to put the technology into practice as soon as possible. He forced himself to immerse himself in books, scrutinizing each page of "Semiconductor Physics" and each chapter of "Photovoltaic Materials Engineering".

The system doesn't offer ready-made answers, but its explanations are as detailed as a skilled butcher dissecting an ox—how photogenerated carriers transition, how the PN junction establishes its field, why the decay curve is exponential… Each knowledge point is accompanied by a three-dimensional dynamic deduction, making it more in-depth than any classroom.

After completing the course, there will be an exam; after the exam, you can redeem energy points. Textbooks, lecture notes, and collections of cutting-edge papers—everything he thoroughly understands is transformed into fluctuating numerical values ​​within the system.

In just over ten days, he passed all five of the most demanding second-year courses: Complex Analysis, Probability and Statistics, Mathematical Physics Equations, Computational Physics, and Physics Research Practice, achieving a perfect A+ on all his exams.

He gradually realized that he couldn't bite off more than he could chew. From now on, he needed to calm down and master one subject at a time—last time he crammed for a competition, he only half-understood quantum mechanics, and now he had to fill in the gaps and start over in the virtual space.

……

The next morning, the entire research team arrived. Professor Li personally led Xiao Yao through seven buffer zones, and the moment they stepped into the main laboratory, the tension suddenly increased.

During the day, I was in the real laboratory adjusting parameters, monitoring data, and disassembling and assembling modules; in the evening, I was surrounded by several professors in the seminar room, analyzing the energy spectrum frame by frame in front of the projection screen. They are all leading figures in the domestic photovoltaic field. They only need to ask three questions before their answers are to the point; they know exactly where to study in depth and where to just know the basics, with surgical precision.

What's even more remarkable is that they don't teach standard answers, but rather thought processes—teaching him how to transform textbook formulas into real, measurable, adjustable, and amplifiable devices.

As he lay down at night, the system automatically loaded the analysis of the day's difficult points; before dawn, he was already deriving the third version of the circuit topology in the virtual sandbox.

Knowledge that used to take three days to digest can now be mastered in just two days. This is not simply due to hard work—the system's continuously enhanced five-dimensional ability value has quietly climbed to 170. Memories flow like a spring, understanding is like breaking ice, and even the deduction process carries a certain natural rhythm.

Within a week, he easily passed all four core third-year courses: Thermodynamics and Statistical Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Advanced Optics, and Solid State Physics, with his midterm mock exam scores far exceeding the grade average.

Even more remarkably, after overcoming this hurdle, Lin Wan discovered that certain sluggish parts of her mind suddenly loosened up—the carrier recombination mechanism that had previously caused her to get stuck while reading "Solar Cell Physics" now appeared as a clear image; the spectral response curves that she had previously swallowed whole could now be used to deduce the effect of doping concentration.

He immediately pulled up the latest version of the "Photovoltaic Device Modeling Manual" and plunged into the simulation interface.

Sleep? It was long ago relegated to the bottom of his to-do list. In his eyes, closing his eyes for an hour was equivalent to missing three sets of Maxwell's equations.

For seven whole days, he didn't sleep a wink, repeatedly disassembling the charging and discharging circuits of that old toy train. Finally, in the early morning of the eighth day, he grasped the crux of the problem: the key to one hour of battery life after five minutes of charging wasn't the battery capacity, but the critical point where photoelectric conversion efficiency and energy storage were matched.

The essence of photovoltaic power generation is the generation of electron-hole pairs in semiconductors when excited by light. When the photon energy crosses the band gap, the electron breaks free from the lattice and jumps into the conduction band—this is the real starting point. However, the shortcoming of the original generator panel was precisely at the interface state between the electrode material and the silicon substrate, where a large number of photogenerated carriers were annihilated before they could escape.

If a passivated contact structure is used along with the TOP Con process, the efficiency will increase by 30%.

The moment he understood, he clenched his fists, his chest burning – this wasn't simply copying system data, but rather him personally nailing the theory into the cracks of reality.

Compared to the previous method of simply copying others to adjust the robot's parameters, this sense of security weighed heavily on my palm.

Half a month later, Xiao Yao, carrying a densely packed calculation sheet and three sets of optimization plans, walked briskly towards the core area of ​​the laboratory.

Professor Li was the one who spearheaded this national mission.

Professor Li is a highly respected senior scholar. Although he is not formally trained in the field of solar energy, he has forged a path from scratch with sheer tenacity—a pioneering achievement that truly commands respect.

Professor Li had been impressed by the small device Xiao Yao had tinkered with earlier; it was he who took the initiative to recommend Xiao Yao to his superiors for this experimental project, which led to Xiao Yao's transfer to participate in the research. In his view, cultivating talent for the country is the duty of scientific researchers.

He placed high hopes on Xiao Yao, hoping that he would quickly take on important responsibilities and become independent as soon as possible.

When Xiao Yao reported his newly devised ideas to Professor Li, the old man was initially a little stunned.

But having spent two or three years deeply involved in solar energy technology, his foundation was solid—the energy conversion logic behind Xiao Yao's little train pierced his mind like a ray of light. In just half a month, he had thoroughly grasped the intricacies of it.

This time, Xiao Yao came up with a new idea. Without saying a word, Professor Li immediately called his assistant and key researchers together to repeatedly deduce and verify it through experiments.

The result was no surprise: Xiao Yao's proposed configuration principle was completely valid.

While the "hard nut to crack" of large-scale solar power plants has not yet been cracked, the "bottleneck" of energy storage batteries has truly been overcome. They can be installed in armored vehicles, radars, and border outposts, or embedded in outdoor equipment and emergency power supplies, and can be readily deployed in the civilian market.

More importantly, the overall technical path of the power plant has become clear, taking a giant leap forward.

The entire laboratory erupted in cheers. Everyone laughed and punched him on the back and patted his arm. Even the usually composed old engineer couldn't help but grin.

Professor Li put his arm around Xiao Yao's shoulder and said, "Your name will be the first on the list of achievements! Once the results are finalized, we'll submit a joint report immediately. I heard you're going to take the postgraduate entrance exam? Why don't you just stop messing around and stay here with us, study for your master's degree with me, and officially join the team? I think you can really skip your undergraduate degree."

Having honed his skills to this level, why cling to the status of an undergraduate? Forget about postgraduate studies; Professor Li privately murmured to his colleagues, "I'd think it wouldn't be a waste to give him a master's degree."

Xiao Yao was certainly tempted, but he had already promised Professor Chen—if Professor Chen hadn't submitted his proposal in the first place, he wouldn't have had this opportunity today. Not to mention that Professor Chen had been guiding him and protecting him all this time, covering for him in every way.

He scratched the back of his head, a little embarrassed: "Professor Li, I'm really sorry... Professor Chen has already accepted me as a graduate student, and I've already agreed to it."

Upon hearing this, Professor Li laughed heartily: "Old Chen, you're always eager to start cultivating promising young talents!"

The report was submitted immediately.

The team quickly reproduced and optimized the model based on the parameters and model provided by Xiao Yao, and the results came faster than expected.