Witnessing The Two Bombs And One Star And Exploring Mars, China's Light Chasers Are Building A Legend

A photo of a "mushroom cloud" has become an important symbol of the new China.

Photo｜People's Daily published the successful explosion of China's first atomic bomb.
At 3:00 p.m. on October 16, 1964, in the northwestern region of China, over Lop Nur in Xinjiang, China's first huge fireball and mushroom cloud of atomic fission rose above the Gobi Desert, and the first atomic bomb was successfully detonated, marking the first time that the Chinese people finally stepped into the atomic nuclear age.
This historic moment triggered a global "earthquake", which not only surprised the top levels of the Western governments at that time, but also freed China from the "nuclear threat" from the Western powers, and laid a solid foundation for our country to practice the concept of independence and peaceful development. As Chairman Mao said in "Nian Nujiao - Kunlun": "Out of the sky, Mang Kunlun, read all the colors of spring on earth. Flying up the Jade Dragon three million, stirring up the coldness of the circumference of the sky."
However, at the scene there is another group of scientists composed of "photography group", with self-developed optical equipment to record China's first atomic bomb explosion fireball changes in the sequence of images of the screen, become China's first atomic bomb explosion one of the important evidence of success.
And behind these photos not easy to show to the public, not only cohesion of China's older generation of scientists to break through the Western technology blockade, the courage to open up high-speed photographic technology determination and sweat, and its optical measurement equipment is witnessed many of China's major scientific research achievements of the historic moment.
From scratch to make Chinese people independent and controllable high-speed camera
Few people know that the ordinary cameras used in daily life can not accurately capture the entire process of the atomic bomb explosion. This is because the instant of the atomic bomb explosion will generate extremely high temperature and pressure, which will lead to damage to ordinary lenses or film burns. Before 1964, the core technology of high-speed photography was in the hands of Western countries. China's development in this field, like the atomic bomb, is completely in the "pioneering" stage. No country is willing to help China to solve these problems, and when the rain comes, "the umbrella is always in the hands of the tallest man", the Chinese people must rely on themselves to solve this big problem in front of them.
In March 1962, under the proposal of Qian Sanqiang, Wang Ganchang and Zhang Jinfu, a research institute was established in Xi'an with the main direction of undertaking the task of optical measurement for nuclear explosion test. Gong Zutong, then 58 years old, one of the founders of China's optical industry, was appointed as the first director, and Su Jingyi, deputy director of the New Technology Bureau of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was appointed as the first secretary of the Party Committee. In 1965, the Institute was officially named "Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Machinery, Chinese Academy of Sciences" (hereinafter referred to as "Xi'an Institute of Optics").
These "westward" scientists started from scratch, and opened up China's high-speed photographic technology and optical materials and devices research to catch up with the road. In a very short period of time to overcome the technical bottlenecks, in 1964 developed a "Kerr box high-speed camera" and "ZDF20-type high-speed split-format camera", successfully photographed the initial explosion of the fireball expansion series of images, the successful completion of the optical measurement task.
The gears of fate began to turn, in November 1966 Xi'an Institute of Optical Machinery developed 2.5 million frames per second high-speed camera, to participate in the June 17, 1967, China's first hydrogen bomb test explosion, and the successful completion of the photometric mission.
In fact, these special high-speed camera is not only able to shoot millions of images per second, but also can be inverted to deduce the precise time of the appearance of the shock wave, to help researchers grasp the spectral data of the burning of nuclear materials, the amount of light impulse, the development of the fireball, the size of the smoke cloud and other information. This information changes in one ten millionth of a second, so each photo is a very valuable first-hand data, and to promote China's high-speed photography research among the ranks of the international advanced.
Mechanics. Over the past sixty years, generation after generation of scientists for China's "two bombs and one star", "manned space program", "moon project", "Mars exploration "The optical instruments or equipments from Xi'an Institute of Optical Machinery have witnessed and recorded many historical moments.
Self-reliance and "hard power" of China's optical research in the new era
In 2015, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized during his visit to Xi'an Institute of Optics and Mechanics that "core technologies cannot be obtained by fiat, but must be self-reliant." Keeping in mind the General Secretary's instructions, researchers have gone from "Shenzhou" to "Tiangong", from "exploring the moon" to "sunrise", from deep sea to deep space, and from the sea to deep space. From "Shenzhou" to "Tiangong", from "Moon exploration" to "Day by Day", from deep sea to deep space, from streak camera, photomultiplier tube, full deep sea ultra-high-definition camera to star-carrying ultra-high-speed optical switching system, and so on, there are Xi'an Institute of Optical Mechanics' figures everywhere.
On September 6, 2023, when the 24th China International Optoelectronic Exposition was held, XEMI took "Seeing Everything in a Flash and Creating the Future with Light" as the theme of the exhibition, with ultra-fast as the core, high-speed as the extension, and "Big Country Heavy Weapons" as the important support, focusing on the "Four Orientations" of the country. The exhibition will focus on the "four directions" of the country and display the major achievements.
In the booth of Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Machinery in Hall 6 of the China International Optical Fair, not only the "national major scientific research equipment" high-performance streak camera, hyperspectral imager of the Environment 2 satellite, underwater blue-green optical communication, low-orbit interstellar laser communication terminals, and Tiangong No. 1 extravehicular camera, but also the star-sensitive series of products, conductive slip rings, ocean optical general-purpose cameras, underwater wet-plugging General-purpose camera, underwater wet plugging photoelectric connectors and a series of scientific research results. The appearance of these major scientific research equipment, showing the Xi'an Institute of Optical Machinery in recent years, the transformation of scientific and technological achievements to explore the efforts made.

High-performance Stripe Camera
As a "national major scientific research equipment", the high-performance streak camera developed by Xi'an Institute of Optics and Mechanics has ultra-high time resolution, high spatial resolution and large dynamic range at the same time, which is an important equipment for realizing the detection of ultra-fast radiation processes, and is of great significance to the basic frontier scientific research and major original innovation. This equipment breaks the international monopoly on such high-end equipment and reaches the international leading level in many technical indexes. Nowadays, Xi'an Institute of Optical Machinery has built the only R&D base of serialized streak camera integrating design, production and testing in China. It has not only realized the breakthrough of key core devices, but also driven the development of many other types of ultrafast optoelectronic devices.
The "Environment 2 Satellite Hyperspectral Imager" is a wide-coverage, high-resolution hyperspectral imager payload on board, which has already served the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Water Resources, the Disaster Reduction Commission and other national and local departments, and it has broad application potential and market prospects in the areas of environmental testing and land surveying.
The all-aluminum free-form surface camera aims at the international development frontier of optical imaging payload technology, realizing the first domestic on-orbit demonstration and verification of the new optical imaging system of "all free-form surface + all-aluminum optic", and has been launched into orbit on July 27, 2022 aboard China's first solid carrier rocket, "Power Arrow I". was launched into orbit on July 27, 2022 aboard China's first solid state launch vehicle "Power Arrow 1".

Photo: Semiconductor laser bar, the core device of optoelectronics
In recent years, Xi'an Institute of Optical Machinery has made a series of progress in optoelectronic materials and devices by focusing on national needs and aiming at the key problems in the field of optoelectronics. Has developed high-power laser fiber, mid-infrared fiber, high-performance electromagnetic shielding optical window, high-power semiconductor laser chip, optoelectronic device thermal management components and other core materials and devices, successfully applied to major national strategic projects. The company has formed an independent and controllable R&D capability of the whole chain from basic materials to key devices to system integration.
Sixty years of passing on the torch, a year of singing and singing. On the road of "pursuing light", Xi'an Institute of Optical Machinery has always been oriented to the strategic areas of air and space science and technology, network communications, intelligent manufacturing, etc., and has been marching forward without hesitation. From the light at hand to the vastness of the stars, from the deep blue sea to the crimson stars, to realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation's Chinese dream to contribute to the strength of the story of chasing the light, is still continuing to write. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)