This laboratory was a "business" of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics. However, this kind of global research was definitely not done by the Institute for Plasma Physics alone.
Lu Zhou had seen the list of collaborating research units. The names of the research units alone were enough to fill up an A4 paper. If the authorship principle here was the same as CERN, as long as everyone involved in the research had a share, the first few pages of the thesis would be filled with signatures.
However, compared to this huge cooperative research group, the stellarator, which was the research object, was much "smaller".
Lu Zhou and Professor Klitzing followed Professor Keriber's footsteps and arrived at the anti-radiation isolation room. They finally saw the Wendelstein 7-X in its entirety.
The 3.5 meters tall and 16 meters wide stellarator quietly sat in the center of the radiation protection isolation room. It looked like Han Solo's "Millennium Falcon" from Star Wars.
However, it had just experienced a battle, so it was docked at the "spaceport". The technicians could only repair it.
When Lu Zhou walked closer, he could clearly see equipment of various sizes densely covering the surface of the stellarator. Countless cables extended from the equipment in all directions, seemingly messily tangled together.
"This thing … How much does it cost?"
"Apparently, it's more than a billion euros." Professor Klitzing, who was standing next to Lu Zhou, looked at the stellarator and said with envy, "If you include the research and development costs, I'm afraid it's an astronomical number."
The funding of the Institute for Plasma Physics was especially enviable.
Even though they were both at the Max Planck Institute, the Institute for Condensed Matter Physics had much less funding than them.
Although I was envious, Klitzing understood the situation.
After all, this kind of multi-country cooperative research and development project was not only funded by the German government, but countries around the world were also investing in it.
"It's that expensive?"
Lu Zhou smacked his lips.
Originally, he was thinking about buying a stellarator for research, but now it seemed like a supercomputer was more realistic …
"Okay, don't worry about the money, the budget is not something we need to worry about." Professor Keriber patted Lu Zhou's shoulder and said, "The final debugging is done, and the experiment is about to begin. Let's go to the observation room now."
…
Unlike when he was working at CERN, the Hadron Collider was operating 100 meters underground. Unless one had a professional qualification certificate, it was impossible to enter the pipeline.
What was presented in front of the theoretical physicists was only the data on the screen and the images that had been further processed.
But now, in front of Lu Zhou, in addition to the detectors connected to various parts of the stellarator, he could even observe the situation inside the orbit with his naked eye through something similar to a camera.
In the observation room, all the staff were on standby.
"Track sealing is normal!"
"Fill the protective gas!"
"The protective gas has been filled. Beginning pressure test procedure!"
"…"
"Superconducting critical temperature reached. The circuit is fully charged!"
"The magnetic field operation has been confirmed to be normal!"
After listening to the reports from the research teams, Professor Keriber immediately gave the order to start the experiment.
"Light the fire!"
The second the magnet current reached 15kA, the thyristor quickly switched on and off. The magnet current was transferred to the first energy dissipation resistor, which generated a voltage of 2400V. The gas in the vacuum chamber was broken down, which resulted in plasma.
Lu Zhou saw through the screen that a layer of light red film-like material formed a twisted ring in the twisted circular orbit.
What surprised him was that this scene was quite beautiful.
"… The temperature of this plasma will exceed hundreds of millions of degrees when it reaches its peak. It is almost equivalent to the inside of a star. There is no material that can stop this scorching energy, even if you search the entire solar system. "Professor Klitzing was also standing in front of the screen.
Lu Zhou asked, "How does the stellarator do it?"
"By using a twisted magnetic field." Professor Klitzing explained, "We use a magnetic field to constrain them and keep them away from the inner wall of the orbit. But even so, it won't last for long … "
While the two were talking, the experiment had entered the most critical moment.
As the second energy dissipation resistor closed, the thyristor's voltage dropped to 1000V. At the same time, the current rose to its peak. The entire orbit was suddenly filled with a scorching light. Even though Lu Zhou was watching through the screen, he still felt a little dazzled.
However, this light didn't last for long.
In less than six seconds, the light suddenly disappeared from the screen like a flame that had been extinguished.
The stellarator gradually stopped, and the people in the observation room started to get busy like boiling water.
Professor Keriber was standing not far away from the two of them. He ordered the researchers in the observation room, "Immediately collect data and check the condition of the equipment. Be quick!"
At the same time, the door of the anti-radiation isolation room opened. Staff members wearing anti-radiation suits quickly walked into the isolation room with various tools and began to physically inspect the condition of the orbit.
When Lu Zhou saw Professor Keriber take off his hard hat, he was stunned.
"That's it?"
"That's right, it's over." Professor Keriber threw his hard hat on the table and walked over. He smiled and said, "Now, it can only discharge for a few seconds at a time. I remember the longest time was about six seconds, and the shortest was only a few picoseconds."
Lu Zhou was speechless.
"… I thought its performance would be even more amazing."
Professor Keriber grinned and said, "In theory, it can discharge for a longer time, but the divertor hasn't been installed yet. Too long of a discharge might cause excessive heat load to damage the first wall material. In two years, when the water-cooled divertor is installed, we can attempt a 30-minute pulse discharge. "
The discharge time here referred to the time that a discharge could maintain the basic magnetic field configuration, which was the so-called pulse time of a discharge.
30 minutes was the goal set by the Wendelstein 7-X at the beginning of its design.
If it could really be achieved, it would undoubtedly have a huge impact on the entire nuclear fusion project. It might even affect the international community's choice of mainstream nuclear fusion engineering technology.
After all, the mainstream choice was the tokamak, but the tokamak's discharge time was at a bottleneck.
Currently, the longest discharge record was held by China's "EAST" with 102 seconds. This was the ceiling of the tokamak's "discharge time". If they wanted to increase this ceiling by an inch, they would have to pay a high price.
When Lu Zhou looked at this device, he began to think.
Suddenly, a whimsical idea popped up in his mind.
If the system were to price magnetic confinement nuclear fusion technology, how many general points would it cost to build a mature stellarator blueprint?
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