Carrying Forward the Spirit of the Long March | Red Jiangxi: Self-Developed Silicon-Substrate LEDs Light Up the World

This year marks the 90th anniversary of the Long March’s victory. During that great expedition, the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army traversed more than ten provinces, braving hardships and fighting bloody battles to compose a magnificent epic that shook the world and will be remembered forever in history, erecting an enduring monument in the course of the Chinese nation’s great rejuvenation. The spirit of the Long March transcends time and remains as vibrant as ever.

The new journey is a new Long March, and each generation must walk its own path with determination. China Central Television’s “News Broadcast” has launched a series titled “Carrying Forward the Spirit of the Long March, Striding Forward on the Road to Rejuvenation,” taking viewers on a journey back to the historic sites of the Long March, witnessing the transformation of old revolutionary base areas, and experiencing how this red legacy is being passed down in the new era. Recently, the team visited Jiangxi Province—the place where the Central Red Army assembled and set out—exploring how this land steeped in revolutionary history has turned the spirit of the Long March into a driving force for revitalization, making solid strides in high-quality development.

In October 1934, the main force of the Central Red Army gathered in Yudu, Jiangxi, embarking on that grand and momentous expedition.

The spirit of the Long March has become the underlying ethos of Jiangxi’s drive to lead, pioneer, and deliver results. Since the advent of the new era, while advancing rural revitalization and new‑type urbanization, Jiangxi has also accelerated its transformation into a strong industrial province. Today, it has cultivated two trillion‑yuan‑scale industries—electronic information and nonferrous metals—and is rapidly building advanced manufacturing clusters.

Among these, self‑developed silicon‑substrate LED technology has broken international barriers and achieved a global breakthrough in technological pathways. It has established a complete industrial chain—from core equipment and epitaxial wafers to packaging and applications—while elevating LED chip production capacity to the forefront globally.

The silicon‑substrate LED technology was independently researched and developed by the team led by Academician Jiang Fengyi at Nanchang University, serving as a vivid embodiment of how researchers in revolutionary base areas are putting the spirit of the Long March into practice in the new era. For decades, the global LED industry had been dominated by two major overseas technological routes—sapphire and silicon carbide—with layers of foreign patent barriers tightly enforced. Breaking new ground, the research team overcame numerous challenges, successfully solving the worldwide problem of gallium nitride blue‑light emission on silicon substrates, thus pioneering the world’s third original blue‑light LED technology route. This breakthrough shattered international technological monopolies, earned them the First Prize of the National Invention Award, and marked a historic leap for China’s semiconductor lighting sector—from technological imitation to original innovation.

Taking silicon‑substrate LED technology as the cornerstone of innovation, Jiangxi has focused on building the “Nanchang Optics Valley,” continuously strengthening and extending its industrial chain, ultimately fostering a fully integrated domestic LED industry cluster in Nanchang. This encompasses everything from core MOCVD equipment manufacturing and epitaxial material production to chip R&D and fabrication, all the way through packaging, testing, and end‑use applications such as lighting, displays, and automotive light sources—creating a closed-loop value chain.

A host of leading enterprises—including Jingneng, Zhaochi, Qianzhao, Zhongwei, and Zhongjie Energy—are now clustered here, bringing their technological achievements out of the lab and into large‑scale industrial production. Today, Nanchang’s LED chip production capacity ranks among the top globally, with products exported far and wide, illuminating markets around the world under the “Made in Nanchang” banner.

Scientific research never stops. In July 2026, the project “Three‑Dimensional PN Junctions with V‑Defects and Their Applications,” spearheaded by Academician Jiang Fengyi’s team at Nanchang University, won the First Prize of the 2025 National Natural Science Award. The project significantly improved the luminous efficacy of yellow LEDs, the efficiency of red LEDs based on gallium nitride, and the electrical injection efficiency of blue‑green LEDs, opening up a new pathway for pure‑chip LED lighting (without phosphor). Its products have been widely adopted in road and bridge lighting, ambient illumination, and other applications, marking a major leap forward in technical capabilities—from fundamental research to commercialization. This achievement represents another significant scientific milestone for the team, following their earlier win of the First Prize of the 2015 National Invention Award.

From the Long March of yesteryear, when revolutionaries broke through countless blockades, to today’s scientists tackling formidable challenges and overcoming foreign technological barriers, what has changed is the task of the times; what remains constant is the indomitable spirit of daring to explore, forging ahead, and striving for self-reliance and strength.

Sources: CCTV News, online resources, compiled.