Tech giants start by disassembling systems

Chapter 186: An Academic Breakthrough for Young Scholars

December 23rd.

Suzhou, Vilan Microsystems Laboratory.

At 7:40 a.m., Su Chen pushed open the laboratory door and found Zhou Zhiyuan already sitting there.

A thick stack of printed manuscripts lay on the table, next to a red ballpoint pen with the cap removed. Zhou Zhiyuan's eyes were a little red, clearly indicating he hadn't slept much last night.

"When did you arrive?" Su Chen put down his backpack and walked to his side.

"Four o'clock in the morning." Zhou Zhiyuan didn't look up. He drew a small circle next to a formula on page sixty-three with his red pen. "There's a discrepancy in the symbols between formulas twenty-seven and thirty-one in Part Four. You're using temperature relaxation time, while Part Two uses the thermoelastic stress coefficient."

"Unify it to the thermoelastic stress coefficient." Su Chen pulled up a chair and sat down, picking up another printed copy. "Temperature relaxation time is how you wrote it in your early draft. The official version should use the thermoelastic stress coefficient to maintain consistency with the definition in Part 1."

Zhou Zhiyuan nodded and wrote in the margin, "7 places were replaced in total."

This is the final review after the paper has been compiled.

A 68-page paper, six sections, 147 formulas, 48 ​​figures and tables, and 47 references—all of this will be submitted to the editorial office of Nature Materials in two days.

If all goes well.

"Have you read the author contribution statement?" Zhou Zhiyuan put down his red pen, flipped to the last two pages of the printed manuscript, and handed them to Su Chen.

Su Chen took it, his gaze falling on the first paragraph:

"The theoretical framework of this paper is entirely derived from the third-order nonlinear thermoelastic coupling model independently proposed by Chen Su. Without this model, this paper would not exist. Chen Su's theoretical contribution is decisive—he not only defined the mathematical boundaries of the problem, but also predicted the scale extrapolation results that have not yet been verified experimentally, which is unprecedented in the field of microelectromechanical systems..."

After reading it, Su Chen remained silent for a few seconds, then picked up the blue pen next to him and drew a line over the three words "decisive".

"Change it to 'core'."

Zhou Zhiyuan frowned: "Why?"

"Because it's inaccurate." Su Chen put down his pen and looked at Zhou Zhiyuan. "I proposed the theoretical framework, but you designed the experimental verification. In the second part, the analysis of applicable conditions, you broadened the boundary to 'any thermoelastic coupled system that satisfies the linear elastic basis assumption'—this is not my original setting. This is your contribution."

"That's an extension within your theoretical framework."

"The extension itself is a contribution." Su Chen's tone was calm but firm. "Moreover, the paper can be written to 68 pages, not because the theory is too complicated, but because the experimental data is solid enough. The process parameters provided by the 27 companies in the alliance, the yield data from CR Microelectronics, and the scanning electron microscope images from Dean Chen's laboratory—these are not things that I could have done by myself."

Zhou Zhiyuan looked at Su Chen, his lips twitching slightly as if he wanted to say something, but in the end he picked up the red pen.

"Let's compromise then." He wrote a new wording above "decisive": "Change it to 'indispensable theoretical foundation'."

Su Chen glanced at it and nodded.

"OK."

And so, the game of wits, which involved a misjudgment, ended in three minutes.

But what those three minutes contained could perhaps only be fully understood by the two of them—a 22-year-old doctoral student and a 38-year-old associate professor who, over the past three months, went from a formula on a whiteboard to a 68-page Nature Materials submission.

The distance between them cannot be measured in page count.

……

The review process continued until 12:30 p.m.

In addition to the seven modifications to unify the symbols, they also found three areas that needed adjustment:

First, the scanning electron microscope (SEM) scale in Part 5. Two images in the original diagram had inconsistent scale font sizes—one was size 8 and the other size 9. Zhou Zhiyuan requested that all scales be standardized to size 8 and that the captions include the text "Scale bar equals ten micrometers".

"Reviewers will look at this," Zhou Zhiyuan said. "Reviewers for Nature Materials are extremely strict about the standards for figures and tables, and inconsistent scales are the easiest problem to be found out."

The second and third parts are error analyses. During the review, Su Chen found that the numerical precision of the upper limit of integration was insufficient—the original text stated "when the radius approaches infinity," but the actual calculation used a radius of 500 millimeters as the cutoff value.

"Make it clear," Su Chen wrote in the margin. "Add a footnote here explaining that the radius cutoff value in the numerical calculation is 500 millimeters, and the corresponding cutoff error is less than 0.001 degrees. Reviewers will notice this difference if they calculate it themselves, so it's better if we proactively explain it."

Zhou Zhiyuan glanced at it and gave a subtle look: "That's a good habit of yours. It's much better to proactively expose flaws than to have them caught by the reviewers."

Third, the references. Originally there were forty-eight references, but Su Chen suggested deleting one—a conference paper from 2019 that was cited only three times, one of which was a self-citation, and it wasn't very relevant to the comparative analysis in Part Four.

The final number of references was forty-seven.

……

At 2 PM, Su Chen and Zhou Zhiyuan began handling matters related to the submission system.

Nature Materials uses Springer Nature's online submission system. The corresponding author is Zhiyuan Zhou, and the first author is Chen Su. The author list includes five people: Chen Su, Zhiyuan Zhou, Dean Chen, Wei Lin, and Zhang Li, an engineer from CR Microelectronics who provided key scanning electron microscopy data and is a core member of the alliance.

"I finished writing the cover letter last night." Zhou Zhiyuan opened his laptop, pulled up a document, and said, "Take a look."

Su Chen leaned closer and read the letter to the editor word by word:

Dear Editor:

We respectfully submit our paper entitled "Third-order nonlinear extension: theoretical framework, experimental verification and scale extrapolation of thermoelastic coupling in microelectromechanical systems" to the journal Nature Materials, and respectfully request your review and acceptance.

This study is the first to construct a complete nonlinear thermoelastic coupling theory for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) applicable to 150mm to 400mm fabrication processes. The core theoretical framework, namely the third-order nonlinear extended model, can accurately predict the fabrication accuracy of wafers of various sizes. Experimental verification covers 150mm (error ±0.035°), 200mm (error ±0.025°), and 300mm (error ±0.018°) fabrication processes, and theoretical extrapolation is completed for the 400mm (error ±0.015°) operating condition.

The core innovative achievements include three aspects: First, constructing a general physical theoretical framework, unifying various existing empirical models into the special working conditions of this theory; Second, experimentally verifying that the process accuracy increases with the increase of wafer size, overturning the traditional inherent understanding in the field of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) processing; Third, through rigorous mathematical proof, verifying that all thermoelastic coupling systems that satisfy the linear elastic basis assumption follow the scale coupling mechanism of the inverse radius decay law.

This research represents a paradigm shift in the fabrication theory of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and has broad research reference value for the fields of materials science and engineering…

Su Chen paused when he read the word "paradigm innovation".

"Isn't this too much?" He looked at Zhou Zhiyuan. "The term 'paradigm innovation'..."

"Not really." Zhou Zhiyuan's tone was calm. "Our paper has indeed achieved this. Existing thermoelastic coupling theories for microelectromechanical systems are all empirical formulas. For the first time, we have given a complete theoretical framework based on first principles. This is a paradigm shift."

"Reviewers might think we're too confident."

"Reviewers will let the data speak for itself." Zhou Zhiyuan pointed to the printed manuscript, "Sixty-eight pages, one hundred and forty-seven formulas, forty-eight charts. If these are not enough to support the term 'paradigm innovation,' then I don't know what would be enough."

Su Chen remained silent for a while, then finally nodded.

"Okay, I won't change it."

……

December 24th, Christmas Eve.

There was no Christmas tree or colored lights in the lab, only the blue light from two computer screens.

Su Chen and Zhou Zhiyuan spent an entire day uploading the final version of their paper to the submission system. Each image needed to be uploaded separately, and each supplementary material file had to be named according to the format requirements.

"Supplementary Figures 1 to 12... Supplementary Tables 1 to 8... Supplementary Notes 1 to 3..."

Zhou Zhiyuan muttered to himself as he operated the system, while Su Chen checked the correspondence between the file names and the contents.

By 11 p.m., all files had been uploaded.

The submission system interface displays the message: "Manuscript Status: Pending Submission".

Zhou Zhiyuan's finger hovered above the submit button, but he didn't press it.

"Wait until tomorrow," he said.

Su Chen glanced at him: "Why?"

"Submitting for Christmas." Zhou Zhiyuan gave a rare smile. "A Christmas gift for the editorial department."

Su Chen was stunned for a moment, then he smiled.

This is probably the least academic thing Zhou Zhiyuan has said in the past three months.

……

December 25th, Christmas Day.

It was exactly 9:00 AM.

Su Chen and Zhou Zhiyuan sat side by side in front of the computer. The screen displayed the Nature Materials submission system, and all the green checkmarks were lit up, indicating that the files were complete and formatted correctly.

"You press it." Zhou Zhiyuan pushed the mouse in front of Su Chen.

Su Chen shook his head: "You're the corresponding author, you press [the button]."

"You're the first author, the theory is yours, the model is yours." Zhou Zhiyuan's tone left no room for negotiation. "You press it."

Su Chen looked at him and remained silent for two seconds.

Then he extended his right hand and placed his index finger on the left mouse button.

"I ordered it."

A crisp click.

The status on the screen changed from "Pending Submission" to "Submitted".

A submission number was automatically generated next to it: Natural Materials 20231247.

Zhou Zhiyuan let out a deep breath, leaned back in his chair, and crossed his hands behind his head.

"Three months," he said, staring at the ceiling. "From the whiteboard to the final draft to submission, three months."

Su Chen didn't speak; he just stared at the submission number on the screen and sat quietly.

From this moment on, this string of numbers is inextricably linked to his name.

Regardless of the final outcome, this paper—sixty-eight pages, six sections, one hundred and forty-seven formulas, forty-eight figures and tables, and forty-seven references—has left his hands and entered the most rigorous peer review process in academia.

For the next six to eight weeks, all he could do was wait.

"Let's go." Zhou Zhiyuan stood up, stretched, and said, "Let's get some breakfast. The lab cafeteria should be having a special Christmas meal today."

Su Chen smiled and stood up as well.

When the two walked out of the lab side by side, the corridor was deserted. On Christmas morning, the entire building was quiet, with only the sound of their footsteps echoing.

But they all knew that this quiet wouldn't last long.

……

The news of the paper submission spread faster than they had anticipated.

On the morning of December 26th, Su Chen received a WeChat message from Dean Chen: "Have you submitted your paper?"

Su Chen replied: "Submitted yesterday morning. The number is Natural Materials 20231247."

Dean Chen sent a thumbs-up emoji, then sent another message: "Come to my office tonight, I'd like to talk to you about something."

Meanwhile, a message has begun to circulate within the microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) industry.

No one knows where the news leaked from—perhaps it was mentioned unintentionally by someone on the author list in the automatic confirmation email from the submission system, or perhaps a graduate student in the lab posted on their social media, "Finally submitted the paper."

In short, on the afternoon of December 26th, a new post appeared on Zhihu:

"I heard that Vilan Microsystems' paper on microelectromechanical systems really was submitted to Nature Materials?"

The post was brief, containing only two sentences: "Insider information: Su Chen and Zhou Zhiyuan from Weilan Microsystems have jointly submitted a paper to Nature Materials, focusing on the theoretical framework of thermoelastic coupling in microelectromechanical systems. Does anyone have more information?"

But these two short sentences received more than two hundred comments in less than three hours.

The top-ranked comment came from an account called "Calm Analyst"—the same blogger who previously wrote industry analysis on MEMS on Zhihu. This comment consisted of only one sentence:

"If this paper is accepted, the rules of the game in the microelectromechanical systems industry will be permanently rewritten."

This comment received over four hundred likes.

The second-ranked comment comes from "Semiconductor Veteran 2003":

"Submitting a paper doesn't guarantee publication. Nature Materials has a rejection rate of over 90%. For a 22-year-old PhD student to submit their first paper to Nature Materials isn't courage, it's naiveté."

This comment received 180 likes.

But soon, the comments section became a battleground between two factions.

Some people have unearthed four arguments from "Semiconductor Veteran 2003's" previous lengthy article questioning the issue, and compared them one by one with publicly available information:

"First, the timeline is extremely unreasonable—Weilan started in September and submitted the paper in December, a total of four months. However, the theoretical framework of the paper was already completed in October, and the experimental verification data came from the existing production lines of more than 20 companies in the alliance. This is not starting from scratch; it is a typical path of theory guiding experiment."

"Secondly, the statement 'It is impossible for a doctoral student to complete the 300mm verification independently'—who said it was done independently? There are five authors on the paper's author list, and more than twenty companies in the alliance provided data support. This is a collaborative model, not a solo effort."

"The third point, 'The data is inflated'—more than twenty companies signed confidentiality agreements to collectively endorse a paper with inflated data? What are the chances of that?"

"The fourth point, 'A doctoral student's theory cannot overturn the existing system'—aren't there many examples in the history of science of doctoral students making disruptive work? Einstein was working at the patent office when he published the theory of special relativity."

This comment, which refuted each point one by one, quickly rose to the top three and received more than three hundred likes.

"Semiconductor Veteran 2003" did not reply.

……

Another hotly debated topic on Zhihu is even more pointed:

"If Su Chen's paper is accepted by Nature Materials, would he be eligible for the Outstanding Young Scientist award?"

The National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (NSFC) is one of the most prestigious young talent awards in China's academic community. Recipients are generally between 35 and 45 years old, and most are already professors or researchers.

A 22-year-old doctoral student? This has never happened before in the history of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars.

However, the author of the post listed Su Chen's "report card":

"Third-order nonlinear thermoelastic coupling model - original theory, with no previous work to refer to."

300mm wafer-level microelectromechanical system process verification – an industry first.

A theoretical prediction of 400 millimeters—no one else in the world can do that.

If this paper is accepted by Nature Materials, it will be the first theoretical paper in the field of microelectromechanical systems ever published at the Nature Materials level.

Such achievements, if given to any forty-year-old professor, would easily qualify them for the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars. But for a twenty-two-year-old doctoral student…”

The post ends abruptly here, without providing a conclusion.

But the comments section has already exploded with discussion.

"If you don't have enough qualifications, there are implicit age and professional title requirements for being recognized as a National Outstanding Young Scientist."

"Rules are made by people, but results are the only true measure of success."

"Don't rush, the paper hasn't been accepted yet. There's a review process between submission and publication, and Nature Materials' rejection rate is over 90%."

"But what if we accept it?"

"If we accept it... then it's not just a matter of being recognized as a National Outstanding Young Scientist; it's a matter of how the entire academic evaluation system should deal with a 22-year-old genius."

This comment received the most upvotes.

……

At 7 p.m. on December 26, Su Chen arrived at Dean Chen's office as agreed.

The office lights were warm. Dean Chen sat behind his desk with a printed copy of a thesis spread out in front of him—the very one that Su Chen and Zhou Zhiyuan had submitted.

"Sit down," Dean Chen said, gesturing to the chair opposite him.

Su Chen sat down, waiting for Dean Chen to speak.

Dean Chen flipped through the paper, stopped on a certain page in the second part, and pointed to a certain paragraph.

"Here, Zhou Zhiyuan has written the applicable condition as 'any thermoelastic coupled system that satisfies the linear elastic basis assumption,'" Dean Chen looked up at Su Chen. "This scope is much broader than your initial setting. Do you agree with this wording?"

"I agree." Su Chen nodded. "I originally only considered silicon-based microelectromechanical systems, but after Professor Zhou completed the experimental analysis, he found that as long as the substrate satisfies the linear elasticity assumption, the core derivation of the third-order model holds true. He is right."

Dean Chen showed a satisfied expression: "It's good that you can acknowledge that others have expanded your theory. Many young people can't do that."

Su Chen did not respond.

Dean Chen was silent for a moment, then changed the subject:

"I won't go into detail about the paper itself. It's submitted, that's all; now it's up to the reviewers. I want to talk to you about something else."

He paused, his gaze becoming serious.

"If this paper is accepted—and I say 'if'—I'm prepared to recommend you for next year's National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars."

Su Chen's fingers twitched slightly, but his expression remained unchanged.

"Professor Chen," he said calmly, "I am twenty-two years old and still pursuing my doctorate. Half of the recipients of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars are professors, and the youngest is over thirty."

"I know," Dean Chen said calmly. "That's why I said 'if the paper is accepted.' If Nature Materials accepts this paper, your third-order model will no longer be a doctoral student's assignment, but an original theory certified by a top international journal. At that point, age and academic title will no longer be an issue."

"rule--"

"Rules serve science, not the other way around," Dean Chen interrupted him. "Of course, this is just my personal opinion. Whether or not someone is ultimately selected is not up to me alone. But I have the right to recommend, and I'm prepared to use it."

Su Chen looked at Dean Chen and remained silent for a few seconds.

"Let's publish the paper first," he finally said.

Dean Chen smiled and said, "That's exactly what Zhou Zhiyuan told me. You two are quite in sync."

Su Chen smiled too.

As he stood up to leave, Dean Chen called him back again:

"Su Chen".

"Um?"

"Three months." Dean Chen's tone softened slightly. "From a blank page to submitting a paper to Nature Materials, three months. Do you know what that means?"

Su Chen stood at the door without turning around.

"That means the next six to eight weeks will be very long," he said.

Dean Chen watched his retreating figure, shook his head, but a smile played on his lips.

This student was always calmer than he expected.