Wang Haifeng grabbed the latest issue of Science from Liu Hong's hand and placed it on the table. He then began to carefully study the small lines of text and pictures.
Even though he didn't like Lu Zhou, he had to admit that Lu Zhou was a genius.
There were a lot of scholars that could publish in Science and Nature, but there were very few scholars that could publish two corresponding theses in the same journal.
The first thesis was a theoretical one. Apart from the conclusion, he couldn't understand the rest of it. After glancing at it, he put it aside.
The second thesis was about the HCS-1 material. As the name suggested, it was an application. Wang Haifeng carefully read through this part.
However, when he saw the first picture, his eyebrows twitched.
His laboratory also had a scanning electron microscope, but it was using a lanthanum hexaboride electron gun.
Even though this electron gun was much more advanced than the tungsten filament electron gun, and the secondary electron image resolution could reach 2nm, and the image was five to ten times brighter than the tungsten filament electron gun, it was nothing compared to the field emission electron gun.
Without a doubt, this picture was taken with a field emission electron gun, and it was a cold field emission electron gun with better performance.
This kind of person was really too hateful!
He didn't even do anything, but he's "showing off his wealth".
Wang Haifeng thought about how he had been an organic scientist for more than 20 years, yet he was doing worse than a kid that had just stepped into the materials industry. Wang Haifeng's heart was twisted with jealousy.
However, he quickly calmed down as he continued reading the thesis.
Wang Haifeng read the last line and slammed the journal back into Liu Hong's hand.
"This is just an in-progress result."
Wang Haifeng sighed in relief.
If the HCS-1 material was modified by Lu Zhou to the same degree as the modified PDMS material, then the international chemical giants and carbon-sulfur composites would do the same.
However, it was obvious that the HCS-1 material wasn't perfect.
Of course, even though this was an in-progress result, the superior performance of the HCS-1 material was still quite shocking. If the production process problem was solved, it might be used in some fields that required high battery energy density but did not require high reuse rate.
For example, drones …
Liu Hong hesitated and said, "What if they only released an in-progress result, and there are more important results that they haven't released yet …"
Wang Haifeng glanced at him. "Do you know how to take off your pants and fart?"
Liu Hong was stunned for a second. He hesitated for a while and smiled awkwardly. "… Can't I publish a few more papers?"
Wang Haifeng was amused by his student, so he laughed and said, "Then tell me, does he need a PhD? Or was he lacking a professional title? Do you really need to care about one or two theses? "
Realizing that he had asked a stupid question, Liu Hong immediately shut his mouth and stopped talking.
Indeed, normal researchers needed to publish papers to accumulate their academic capital so that they could find a decent job in the laboratory and one day make a name for themselves.
Most professors also needed a thesis to prove their academic ability and to complete the school's scientific research target. At the same time, when they applied for a research fund, they could write a better resume and be more polite to the staff.
However, for someone who was already a scientific research boss, this was nothing.
Patents were the most important thing in the field of engineering, especially when it came to getting money from companies.
If one couldn't get a patent, then no matter how much work they did, it would only pave the way for other people's success. For some large research projects, even if they had 90% confidence in the results, they wouldn't release in-progress results.
Unless they were really short of money and needed in-progress results to stabilize investors' emotions, they would also need to bait new investors into thinking that they would soon see results.
Obviously, Lu Zhou wasn't this type of person.
A layman might not know how valuable the modified PDMS material was, but Wang Haifeng, who was in the materials industry, knew. Not only did Umicore pay 400 million yuan for this patent, but they also gave away a large amount of profits.
Then, there was only one possibility left …
Wang Haifeng's eyes flashed as he said, "This kid isn't simple. I'm afraid that before he published the modified PDMS material thesis last July, he was already doing related research. Last time at the conference, everyone was talking in riddles. He was the only one who spoke clearly, so I guessed that he might have already made some progress. "
Most people would start writing a thesis after they received the patent number. Almost no one would wait until the international patent authorization was issued before they started writing a thesis. Considering the patent registration cycle, it would take at least 12 months for all the documents to be in place.
This meant that even though the thesis was published in the summer of 2016, the actual research results might have been published in 2015.
Wang Haifeng had a million reasons to suspect that Lu Zhou had been researching hollow carbon spheres since a year ago, after the modified PDMS film technology was developed.
Liu Hong thought of a possibility, but he wasn't sure. He asked, "What do you mean?"
"His research has probably reached a bottleneck." Wang Haifeng smiled and said, "It's better to be safe than sorry. Young people can't even afford to wait."
In a situation where research progress was at a standstill, it was common to release in-progress results first in order to prevent others from producing major results first. Although it would expose the progress of his research, it would also give him more control over the situation.
After all, the longer one waited, the higher the risk. Especially in some popular research fields, one could wait for two months before someone else produced the same results.
Considering that there were so many research institutes that were shorting out the core carbon spheres, the possibility of this happening was quite high. However, if someone else published their results first, it would mean that all of their previous efforts would be in vain.
In Wang Haifeng's opinion, Lu Zhou was a typical young man. Even though he was shrewd, he couldn't handle this kind of pressure.
"Let's continue with our research project." Wang Haifeng thought for a second before he looked at Liu Hong and said, "Just in case, help me ask around at the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials. Find someone to ask about their research progress."
"But I don't know anyone from Jin Ling University," Liu Hong said. He then said, "Even if I know them, do you think they would tell me?"
Wang Haifeng said, "Are you stupid? I've arranged everything for you. What's the use of having you around! "
Liu Hong shut his mouth and didn't dare to say anything.
Wang Haifeng paused for a second and spoke in a relaxed tone.
"Also, we have to change our proposal."
In the proposal, he only described the direction of hollow carbon spheres for carbon-sulfur composite materials. Now that Lu Zhou had released in-progress results, if Wang Haifeng still used such a general description, he might be rejected because of the "novelty" rule.
However, this was easy to change.
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