It was February, and it was snowing in Jinling. It was almost New Year's.
Over the past few days, Lu Zhou had been living in the laboratory.
Even though he bought a house, he didn't go back many times, which was a shame.
Fortunately, a few days before New Year's, the research at hand was finally completed. This made him sigh in relief.
Actually, he didn't have to finish this work before New Year's.
However, being able to complete this research at this time would more or less increase his chances for his trip to Germany.
In any case, in order to carry out his follow-up research, a stellarator was necessary.
Lu Zhou politely wrote an email and sent it to Professor Keriber in Germany. He then put on his jacket and left the research institute.
After he left the research institute, he breathed in the fresh air outside. Before he went home, he stopped by the STAR Stellarator Research Institute's construction site.
The cold didn't dampen the enthusiasm of the workers at all. Just like when the project first opened, the construction site was in full swing.
Almost every time Lu Zhou passed by this place, he could feel that it was different from last time.
With the support of ten times the manpower and material resources, the progress of the project was visible to the naked eye.
Regiment Commander Dai happened to be patrolling the site, and he noticed Lu Zhou getting out of his car. He walked over and greeted him with a smile.
"What brings you here?"
Lu Zhou: "I'm about to go home, and I happened to pass by here, so I stopped by to take a look. It's almost New Year's, thank you for your hard work. "
Regiment Commander Dai said nonchalantly, "It's fine, this is nothing."
Before the project was accepted, there wouldn't be a ceremony.
This year's New Year's dinner was never going to be outside of the construction site.
Regiment Commander Dai chatted with Lu Zhou for a bit and looked at the research institute not far away. He squinted his eyes and said, "If our country uses controllable nuclear fusion electricity, how much money do you think we can save on energy every year?"
"I didn't win the Nobel Prize in Economics, so I can't give you an accurate number."
Lu Zhou paused for a second before he continued, "But one thing is for sure. When the day comes, our country's electrical industry will usher in leaps and bounds."
Although Lu Zhou did not study economics, his intuition told him that the value of this could not be measured by money.
Regiment Commander Dai: "Leap? Like when you changed it? "
Lu Zhou said in a joking tone, "It's hard to say, maybe it's the Industrial Revolution."
Industrial revolution …
It sounded like a distant word.
Even in the history of human civilization, this had only happened three times.
Looking at the building not far away, Regiment Commander Dai's gaze couldn't help but be filled with anticipation …
…
The snow in Jinling came and went quickly. Not long after, it stopped.
For most of the cities in northern Europe, it was still a scene wrapped in silver.
In the quiet suburb of Greifswald, in the corner of the Baltic Sea, Keriber was checking his work email in the Wendelstein 7-X laboratory.
Just as he finished dealing with all the unread emails, another unread email suddenly flew into his mailbox.
When Keriber opened the email and saw the sender, he paused for a second.
Lu Zhou?
After seeing this name, Keriber's expression slightly changed as he continued to read the email.
[Dear Professor Keriber, hello.
[In a few days, it will be China's New Year. On this auspicious occasion, I sincerely wish you good health and good luck.
[Also, I have a piece of good news here, I'm sure you will be interested …]
When Professor Keriber read this, he raised his eyebrows, and a look of interest appeared on his face.
If someone else said this, he might not believe it.
However, since this was Lu Zhou, even though Keriber didn't know what Lu Zhou was going to say, he couldn't help but look forward to it.
[… In order to solve the problem of insufficient magnetic field strength, we tried many solutions. In the end, we succeeded with a carbon-based superconducting material.]
[You know, among the many engineering problems that limit the increase of the electromagnetic field strength, one of the most critical is the difficulty in continuing to expand the size of the coil while ensuring that the copper oxide conductor remains at the superconducting transition temperature. After all, whether it is the copper oxide material or the liquid helium channel, they both take up a lot of space in the entire superconducting magnet project.
[In order to solve this problem, we made many attempts. The most important one was to increase the transition temperature of the superconducting material as much as possible, so that it is as close to room temperature as possible. This way, we can reduce the volume of the cooling device in the entire project.
[In fact, because of this experimental idea, we did achieve a lot of results. However, we unexpectedly discovered that in order to solve this problem, we don't necessarily have to start from the transition temperature.
[Take the copper oxide material as an example. If we want to maintain the copper oxide conductor at the superconducting transition temperature, one of the most difficult problems is the poor thermal conductivity of the copper oxide. It's not friendly enough.
[As a superconducting material, graphene has excellent performance in both horizontal and vertical heat dissipation. In theory, the thermal conductivity can even reach 5300W/m · k.
[You're an engineer, you should know what this means.]
Keriber was reading the letter in a serious manner, but when he read this, he smiled and shook his head.
Of course he knew what this meant. Even if the thermal conductivity of the SG-1 material wasn't as exaggerated as 5300W/m · k, a thermal conductivity of more than a thousand was more than enough to beat the poor thermal conductivity of the copper oxide.
Even pure copper only had a thermal conductivity of 401W/m · k.
What did this mean?
This meant that in an engineering sense, if the difficulty of maintaining the copper oxide at the superconducting transition temperature was 10, then the engineering difficulty of maintaining the graphene conductor at the superconducting transition temperature was only 1.
In fact, in some cable materials or electronic devices, graphene itself was used as a higher grade heat dissipator than graphite.
However, the problem was that the superconducting performance of the SG-1 material was reflected in the overlapping angle of the two-dimensional material. How did one plan on processing the SG-1 material into a wire?
This wasn't as simple as making a thousand-layer cake.
Keriber himself couldn't figure out how to process the stuff that appeared in the laboratory into a wire.
Not to mention, it was extremely expensive …
However, at that moment, while reading the email, he suddenly froze.
At the end of the email, Lu Zhou wrote …
[… In fact, we have successfully found a suitable method. Even though it doesn't look reliable, we have successfully obtained a half-meter-long wire.]
Keriber sat up abruptly, and he nearly fell out of his chair.
His assistant noticed what was going on, and he quickly asked, "What's wrong, professor?"
"Nothing." Keriber held onto the armrest of the chair and adjusted his collar. He then looked at his assistant and said, "Help me book a plane ticket, I have to go to Jinling, China."
The assistant paused for a second and spun the pen in his hand.
"What date?"
Without any hesitation, Keriber spoke in a serious manner.
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