"A lot of things can't be explained clearly in an email, and it's not convenient to put them in an email. I'll demonstrate it to you on the spot, and you'll understand how amazing this thing is."
Lu Zhou nodded at Qian Zhongming, indicating that they could begin.
After Qian Zhongming heard Lu Zhou's instructions, he pressed a few buttons on the computer and operated the equipment to introduce liquid helium to the top of the glass cover.
The second the ultra-low temperature liquid helium came into contact with the wire, the heat of the wire dissipated at an incredible speed. It quickly reached the transition temperature, and the resistivity curve on the computer screen fell to the bottom.
Professor Keriber's pupils contracted.
From his face, one could clearly see the astonishment on his face.
"It's too early to be surprised." Lu Zhou smiled and looked at Qian Zhongming. He said, "Increase the voltage."
"Okay."
Qian Zhongming skillfully operated the equipment and increased the voltage applied to both ends of the wire according to Lu Zhou's instructions.
Superconductors had three critical parameters, which were the critical transition temperature Tc, the critical magnetic field strength Hc, and the critical current density Jc.
Hc meant that when the magnetic field strength on the surface of the superconductor reached a certain magnetic field strength Hc, it would exit the superconducting state.
Jc meant that when the voltage on both sides of the conductor reached a certain value, the current flowing through the superconductor would exceed the critical value, and the conductor would exit the superconducting state.
According to the experimental reaction data, the SG-1 material showed excellent performance at these three critical parameters.
At least, it was far better than the copper oxide superconducting material.
As Professor Keriber looked at the resistivity curve, he was shocked.
From an engineer's perspective, he could clearly see the difficulty of maintaining the "SG-1" superconducting material at the superconducting transition temperature. It was much easier than maintaining the copper oxide material at the superconducting transition temperature.
Lu Zhou looked at Keriber and said, "In addition to these images, we observed its atomic distribution structure under the scanning tunneling microscope and drew a simulated image of the carbon atom distribution based on this data."
Professor Keriber asked cautiously, "Can you show it to me?"
Lu Zhou smiled and said in a relaxed tone, "Of course."
After saying that, he gestured to Qian Zhongming to retrieve the simulation image.
In the simulated image, carbon atoms labeled as green were tightly stacked together.
In terms of horizontal structure, the densely packed carbon atoms were arranged in a hexagonal shape in a space with a width of only a thousand nanometers. It was like a net made of hexagonal patterns.
In the vertical structure, the layers were stacked at a slight angle, forming a slender columnar structure along the vertical direction.
It was like a work of art. Just by looking at it, one could tell how difficult it was.
Professor Keriber was amazed by the molecular processing technology involved. He looked at the simulation image on the computer screen and finally couldn't help but ask, "How did you do it?"
Lu Zhou smiled faintly and said, "We were inspired by the vapor deposition method. As for how we did it, please forgive me for not being able to disclose it for the time being. I hope you can understand."
In fact, the synthesis of single graphene nanoribbons had been invented as early as 2012. There was nothing magical about it.
One of the more classic methods was to etch grooves on the surface of silicon carbide and use this as a substrate to form graphene nanoribbons that were only a few nanometers wide.
In the latest research results, the graphene nanoribbons synthesis technology jointly completed by the CNR Institute of Nanoscience in Italy and the University of Strasbourg in France was able to cut the nanoribbons to a width of seven atoms.
However, even though there were existing research results for reference, there were still difficulties.
For example, how to make graphene nanoribbons that were stacked vertically and how to adjust the overlap angle between the layers were problems that had to be solved.
Lu Zhou referred to the method of the CNR Institute of Nanoscience in the design of the experiment. However, he didn't use silicon carbide. Instead, he used a weak ligand, polyethylene pyrrolidone, and formaldehyde to produce a mono-atomic thickness of rhodium metal sheet. After stacking, holes were punched and the overlapping angle was adjusted.
It turned out that compared to fiddling with hexagons that were a few atoms wide, it was obviously much easier to manipulate micron-sized substrates.
Also, as long as they successfully obtained the substrate, it was equivalent to obtaining a mold for synthesizing this kind of wire, which could be repeatedly used in the laboratory or production line.
Of course, even though this sounded simple, it wasn't that simple to actually do.
This involved a lot of complicated methods, as well as the tireless efforts of countless scientific researchers.
Fortunately, this task was completed in the end.
Keriber couldn't help but ask, "What about the cost?"
Lu Zhou said in a relaxed tone, "The main cost is concentrated in the production of the substrate. The production cost is indeed high, but according to our research, as long as we expand the production scale, the cost isn't as high as we think."
Keriber had a bitter smile on his face as he said, "But how long do you think it will take for the industry to become interested in it?"
The industry wouldn't decide to produce a technology just because it was interesting. They wouldn't rush to update their production line just because ITER needed to add an experimental reactor, unless their country was able to get them a profitable order through ITER.
Or …
If a high-tech company like Microsoft suddenly discovered that the SG-1 material could be used on circuit boards or supercomputer chips, then the demand generated by the downstream industry would push upstream companies to expand their production capacity in this field.
By that time, the price of this material might drop.
In fact, Keriber felt like this "hair" had the potential, but he didn't know how long he would have to wait for that day to come.
If they didn't see enough profit, the industry might never be interested.
Lu Zhou smiled faintly and said nonchalantly, "This isn't a complete market economy, so the rules you said are not completely applicable here. The industry isn't guided by the market, it can be something else. "
Professor Keriber raised his eyebrows and seemed to understand what Lu Zhou was talking about.
However, in his opinion, this was ridiculous …
"You don't have to worry about the mass production of the SG-1 wire. In fact, we have already contacted the relevant companies, and the production line design has entered the final stage. We will be able to produce the SG-1 material in a year at the latest. "
Lu Zhou paused for a second and looked at Professor Keriber.
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