1 Construction of China Optical Glass Research and development Center

In the world environment contested by the great powers, the manufacturing technology of optical glass, which is the core of optical technology, has always been very secret. The series of optical glass products was established in the early 20th century by the famous German optometrist E.Abbe and the chemist O.Schott. In the First World War, due to the German embargo, the United States was forced to solve the manufacturing of optical glass itself, and wrote a book on optical glass manufacturing after the war, but it was an internal work. After the Russian October Revolution, the Soviet Union established the National Institute of Optics, and one of the first important achievements was the mastery of optical glass manufacturing technology. The predecessor of the Soviet glass world, Gacharov, wrote a book on optical glass, which is also internal. Legend has it that during World War II, the United States sank a submarine carrying optical glass in the Pacific Ocean in order to block Germany's supply of optical glass to its ally, Japan.

After the founding of New China, in order to strengthen the development of China's military and civilian optical instruments, in Changchun to build the Chinese Academy of Sciences instrument Hall (Changchun Institute of Optics and Precision Machinery predecessor, referred to as Changchun Instrument Hall), Mr. Wang Daheng felt the urgent need of optical glass in the construction of new China, to the Northeast People's Government at that time applied for 400,000 yuan of special funds. And invited Mr. Gong Zutong to join the Changchun Instrument Museum, responsible for the trial production of optical glass. Mr. Gong Zutong was very excited, gladly accepted the job, and actively invested in the development. From the spring of 1951 proposed the design of the pilot workshop task book, immediately ran to contact the architectural design and construction units, started that year, and completed the construction of the plant. At that time, only Liu Songhao had just graduated from the university and was assigned to assist Mr. Gong in his work. In the autumn of 1952, I and a group of young people (including Wang Shizhuo, Chen Qingyun, Zhang Peihuan, Wo Xinneng, etc.), due to the needs of national construction, graduated from university in advance and were assigned to Changchun Instrument Museum to work in the optical glass laboratory. In that year, the chemical group, raw materials and ingredients group, crucible group, melting group, inspection group and administrative group were set up respectively. Qingyun Chen and Peihuan Zhang are in charge of the Raw Materials and Glass Chemical Analysis Group; Wang Shizhuo is responsible for the ingredients and procurement of glass raw materials; Vosinen was responsible for the inspection group, which established the testing of the optical properties of the glass, as well as the testing of bubbles, stripes and optical uniformity; The 300L volume of the large crucible is a key material, by Mr. Gong Zu Tong personally directed the old master such as Gang Xueyi to do the crucible work, the administrative group by the "red kid" Kang Yonghua to lead, he joined the army at the age of 15, the past has been working in the army. Liu Songhao is one of Mr. Gong Zutong's right-hand men and business secretary, assisting Mr. Gong in managing and leading the work of the entire office. I served as the leader of the melting team, and I worked with two middle school students recruited from Shanghai: Ma Zhongtang and Sun Zhongming, as well as a group of old masters with experience in melting ordinary ware glass. We start by repairing gas furnaces, designing oil sprayers, laying gas and oil pipelines, customizing special refractories and building furnaces.

In 1952 this year, we are from scratch, build the optical glass melting workshop, in the university we have not learned about silicate and glass technology courses, everything is in the "do what, learn what" temper grew up, we are full of enthusiasm, hesitation.

2 The birth of the first pot of optical glass and the improvement of the production process

In July 1952, the crucible group produced a 300L large crucible, and in mid-October, the large glass furnace began to bake, during which the crucible suffered several failures due to cracking during the roasting process; Sometimes the crucible has been heated to 1400℃, began to add glass raw material, and when it melted, it broke. We are not afraid of the high temperature in front of the furnace, take out the broken crucible, and remove the glass liquid that flows into the furnace. The scene was so moving that no one shied away from it. Mr. Gong Zutong lived with us by the fire day and night, and we poured our energies into the glass in the crucible inside the furnace. On the Lunar New Year's Eve of 1953, optical K-8 glass with a large crucible of 300L was obtained for the first time. Two more cauldrons were then successfully melted (see Figure 1). It is a joyous New Year. Mr. Gong Zutong said: "The burden of my life has been relieved from now on, and this is the happiest day of my life." I'll never forget that for the rest of my life." What is more gratifying is that from now on, the birth of China's first cauldron of optical glass will be included in the educational example of optical glass factory training the young generation.

In 1953, after the successful trial production of optical glass, it entered the stage of consolidation and improvement. The first is to expand the variety of optical glass. We are all working under the direct guidance of Mr. Gong Zutong. At that time, I got a piece of information that was sent to the United States during the Anti-Japanese War to study and bring back. This data contains only a dozen kinds of optical glass (common crown and flint) chemical composition and melting procedures. And introduce him to me to read, some scientists view of sun han, published in the journal of the American ceramic society (JournalofAmericanCeramicSociety) glass optical properties of the calculation of the article. We first melted the optical glass from boron crown to flint and then to barium crown in a small crucible in an electric furnace, and obtained a number of data to correct the optical constants of the glass in front of the furnace. Then, the chemical composition and melting procedures of different kinds of optical glass are obtained by testing in a melting furnace. At this time, I realized that optical glass is a variety of varieties, containing a variety of chemical components, to know the relationship between the optical properties of glass and the composition is very important, such as in advance to predict the optical properties of the glass after production is very necessary. It hides my intention to calculate the physical properties of the molten glass from the chemical composition of the glass.

In 1953, another group of early graduates were assigned, especially three members from South China Institute of Technology (now South China University of Technology) : Jiang Zhonghong, who was in the melting group with me; Mr. Zhong, under the guidance of Mr. Wang Daheng, responsible for optical glass annealing (transferred to Shanghai Xinhu Glass Factory in 1964, responsible for the development of 1.5m diameter glass-ceramics, settled in the United States in 1978); Qin Qizhuo is responsible for the manufacture of glass clay crucible. Zhang Dongqi was transferred from Tangshan Institute of Technology to strengthen the leadership of optical glass inspection and heat treatment.

From 1954 to 1956, there were two major technological reforms in the optical glass manufacturing process: One is in the process, from the classic method (the melted optical glass and the crucible are taken out together, cooled naturally under the heat shield, the crucible and the glass are exploded during cooling, and then the good quality glass block is selected at room temperature), to the casting method (the melted optical glass and 300L half ton of crucible are taken out of the high temperature, and cast into the preheated iron mold, and the smelting process is improved. It is then sent together into a precision annealing furnace and gradually cooled down). As a result, the yield is greatly improved, and large size optical glass blank can be obtained.

The second is that optical glass requires very high optical uniformity of glass, and the refractive index difference (△n) of the annealed optical glass blank should reach 10-6. Therefore, it is very different from other varieties of glass melting that the glass liquid should be stirred in the high temperature melting process. At first, we refer to the information brought from the United States, the use of finger-shaped high temperature refractory material made of stirring rods. In 1956, learning the advanced experience of the Soviet Union, the spiral mixing paddle was used to improve the uniformity of the glass liquid. It took only a year to go from the trial production of spiral paddle and mixer to practical use.

3 Build China's first optical glass production line in Kunming

In the 1950s, China produced optical glass needed for military and civilian optical instruments, mainly from the international market, but at that time, it was restricted by the embargo and could only buy the most common optical glass. For the urgent need at that time and the future training of talents, the former fifth Ministry of Machinery of the State (Ministry of Weapons Industry) decided to build an optical glass production workshop in the largest optical weapons factory in China (Kunming 298 Factory), and the instrument museum of the Chinese Academy of Sciences sent people to be responsible for technology. At the beginning of 1956, Mr. Wang Daheng sent me to build and proposed to the Fifth Machinery Department that I should be treated as an "expert" and go there by plane. At that time, it took more than a week to travel from Beijing to Kunming by train and coach. In March 1956, I went to Kunming, at that time, I was less than 24 years old, the first time to take a plane, not even a watch, bought a double bell horseshoe alarm clock, about the morning to go to the civil aviation office of the tricycle, on the 20-30 seats of the Soviet twin propeller small plane, flying over the Qinling Mountains, it was very bumpy, after vomiting I arrived in Kunming grosser.

I worked in Kunming 298 Factory for 3 months, and the first thing I did was to design the workshop of optical glass workshop with the engineers and technicians of the factory, arrange the process flow and equipment, crucible preparation, and the formula and raw material supply for the production of the first batch of optical glass. This is equivalent to the summary of our nearly 4 years of optical glass development. The second thing is that I participated in the site selection of the optical glass factory assisted by the Soviet Union with the aid expert Kuleshova (Chengdu was finally selected, that is, the Chengdu 208 Factory of the Fifth Machinery Department). Kuleshova is an optical glass technician, she does not know much about the design of the factory, but she brought a complete set of technological materials for manufacturing optical glass, from which I got a lot of useful information. The most important thing is to know that the use of propeller-type mixing can greatly improve the uniformity of optical glass. I forwarded the information to Changchun in time, and three months later, when Engineer Kuleshova visited the Changchun Machinery Institute, she was very surprised to see that we had already used the propeller-type mixing process.

Three months later, I returned to Changchun because the Chinese Academy of Sciences wanted to send me to study in the Soviet Union. After the construction of Kunming optical glass workshop by Liu Songhao and Jiang Zhonghong have been responsible for. From 1956 to 1959, Changchun Optical Glass Development Base did a lot of promotion work, received personnel training from all over the country, and provided information, without reservation to provide equipment drawings and glass formulas. Especially for Kunming 298 Factory and Shanghai Xinhu Optical Glass Factory, their engineers and technicians and old masters are supporting to study in Changchun, and later become the backbone of production in the field of optical glass.

In the autumn of 1956, after studying Russian for two months, I went to the Soviet Academy of Sciences for an internship. Before leaving, Mr. Wang Daheng and Mr. Gong Zutong repeatedly suggested to the Chinese Academy of Sciences and relevant Soviet experts who participated in China's 12-year science and technology development plan, hoping that I could study optical glass at the Soviet National Institute of Optics. As the National Institute of Optics is a confidential unit of the Soviet Union, foreigners are not allowed to enter the work and study, I can only study in the Institute of Silicate Chemistry of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, please Professor Ben, who has worked in the optical glass of the National Institute of Optics, as my supervisor. During the Sino-Soviet friendship period, in the summer of 1957, the Soviet Union arranged for me to work as an intern in an optical glass production factory, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences granted me access to the secret department of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. I lived in the home of the head of the security section of the optical glass factory, which was built in the forest on the outskirts of Moscow, in a town where no foreigners had ever come. The next day I was greeted by the head of the technical section of the plant, Engineer Kureshkova (the Soviet aid specialist at Kunming 298). We were both very surprised to meet here. She gave me an enthusiastic tour of the factory, and I learned that all the technical work in the factory was under the direct control of the Soviet State Optics Institute. Finally, Kuleshova accompanied me to the confidential data room, where I could look at the data and make notes, but I could not take it out, including my notebook. Luckily, they allowed me to write in Chinese. So, I spent days in this secret data room. Finally, my notebook was sent to the secret room of the Institute of Silicate Chemistry of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. After negotiation, they kindly agreed that my notebook could be sent back to China through the Chinese Embassy in the Soviet Union. This played a great role in the study of optical glass in Changchun Optical Machinery Institute at that time.

By the autumn of 1959, after I had defended my doctoral dissertation, I requested another business visit to the Soviet Union and asked the Chinese Embassy in the Soviet Union to go through confidential procedures with the Soviet Academy of Sciences. By the end of 1959, although I had visited a number of universities and institutes in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, I was no longer able to access classified units.

By this time, political differences between China and the Soviet Union had emerged at the Bucharest conference, although they were not yet perceptible to the outside world. In early 1960, I returned from the Soviet Union and returned to the Optical Materials Department of the Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to continue my work on optical glass development