Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
“A lot of things can’t be conveyed clearly through email. Once I demonstrate it to you live, you’ll understand how amazing this thing is.”
Lu Zhou nodded to Qian Zhongming. He then told him to begin the experiment.
After receiving Lu Zhou’s instructions, Qian Zhongming pressed a few buttons on the computer. He then operated the equipment and put liquid helium on top of the glass cover.
The second the extremely low-temperature liquid helium touched the wire, the heat was instantly dissipated, and the wire quickly reached its transition temperature. The resistance curve on the computer screen quickly began to slide down.
Professor Keriber’s pupils slightly narrowed.
It was obvious that he was astounded.
“It’s too early to be surprised,” Lu Zhou said to Professor Keriber. He then looked at Qian Zhongming and said, “Increase the voltage.”
“Okay.”
Qian Zhongming skillfully operated the equipment. He followed Lu Zhou’s instructions and increased the voltage across the wire.
There were three parameters for superconductivity. One was the critical transition temperature, also known as Tc, the other was the critical magnetic field strength, Hc, and finally, the critical current density, Jc.
When the magnetic field strength of the superconductive material surface reached Hc, it would exit the superconductivity state.
The Jc was the same. When the voltage on both sides of the conductor reached a certain value, the current in the superconductor would exceed the critical value and exit the superconductivity state.
According to the experimental data, the SG-1 material showed excellent performance in these three factors.
At least, it far surpassed the copper oxide superconducting material.
As Professor Keriber looked at the resistance-versus-current graph, a look of astonishment gradually appeared on his face.
From an engineer’s point of view, he could clearly see that maintaining the SG-1 material in its superconductivity state was way more difficult than achieving the superconductivity transition temperature of copper oxide.
Lu Zhou looked at Keriber and said, “In addition to these graphs, we have looked at its atomic distribution structure under a scanning tunneling microscope. Using that data, we also plotted a simulated image of the carbon atom distribution.”
Professor Keriber then asked worriedly, “Is it fine for you to show it to me?”
Lu Zhou smiled and said in a relaxed tone, “Of course!”
He signaled Qian Zhongming to retrieve the simulated image.
In the simulated image, the green-labeled carbon atoms were densely packed together.
For the lateral structure, the carbon atoms were densely arranged in a hexagonal shape with only a thousand nanometers in width. It was like a net that was weaved into a six-grid pattern.
For the longitudinal structure, the layers were stacked together at a slight angle, forming an elongated columnar structure.
It was basically like a piece of art. Keriber couldn’t describe his feeling when he looked at it.
Professor Keriber marveled at the molecular processing technology. When he looked at the images, he couldn’t help but ask, “How did you guys do it?”
Lu Zhou smiled slightly. “We were inspired by the chemical vapor deposition method. As for the exact process, I’m afraid I can’t reveal it to you. I hope you understand.”
Actually, the synthesis technology for graphene nanoribbons had been invented in 2012, so this was nothing magical.
A more classical method was to engrave grooves on the surface of silicon carbides and use that as a substrate to form the few nanometers wide graphene nanoribbons.
As for the latest research results, the graphene nanoribbons synthesis technology completed by the CNR Institute of Nanoscience of Italy and the University of Strasbourg in France was able to cut the nanoribbon to a width of seven atoms.
However, even though there was existing research that could be used as a reference, the difficulty was still there.
For example, how to stack the graphene nanoribbons longitudinally and how to adjust the overlapping angle between layers; these were all problems that had to be solved.
Lu Zhou used the CNR Institute of Nanoscience’s research results as the inspiration for his design experiment. However, he didn’t use silicon carbide. Rather, he used a weak polyvinylpyrrolidone ligand and formaldehyde to form a monoatomic thickness layer of a metal film. He then stacked the layers together and adjusted its overlapping angles.
It turned out that it was much easier to operate a micro-sized substrate than a hexagon with the width of a few atoms.
Also, once they successfully obtained the substrate, it was almost like obtaining a wire synthesizing mold; it could be repeatedly used in the production line of a laboratory.
Of course, even though this sounded easy, it wasn’t that easy to do.
There were many complicated steps and methods involved, not to mention the countless blood sweat and tears shed by scientific researchers.
But fortunately, this task was already completed.
Keriber couldn’t help but ask, “What about the costs?”
Lu Zhou said with ease, “The main cost is on the production of substrates, and the production cost is very high for a small number of products. However, according to our research, as long as the scale of production is increased, the cost isn’t as unacceptable as we had imagined.”
Keriber had a worried smile on as he asked, “But how long do you think it will take before the industry is interested in it?”
The industry wouldn’t decide to produce a product just because the underlying technology behind it was interesting. And unless their country had secured enough orders with ITER, it also wouldn’t rush the production line just because ITER needed to add an experimental reactor.
Maybe if tech companies like Microsoft suddenly discovered that the SG-1 material could be used on circuit boards or supercomputer chips, the downstream industry would push the demand for upstream companies to produce this material.
And by that time, maybe the material price would come down.
Actually, Keriber thought that this wire had potential, but he didn’t know how long it would take for this potential to be realized.
If the industry didn’t see enough profit in this product, it might never be interested in it.
Lu Zhou smiled. He didn’t seem to care. “This isn’t fully dependent on the market economy, so the rules you said don’t necessarily apply here. There are things other than the market that would move the industry.”
Keriber raised an eyebrow. He seemed to have understood what Lu Zhou meant.
However, in his opinion, doing that was crazy…
“You don’t have to worry about the SG-1 production line. Actually, we have already contacted a company and they are in the final stage of the production line design. We will start producing the SG-1 material in a year at the latest.”
Lu Zhou paused for a second. He then looked at Professor Keriber.
“Let’s make a deal.”
