In the back garden of the Star Emperor Palace, the capital of the empire, Li Fu leisurely drank tea, looked at books, and thought about the core and most difficult point of the warp engine in his mind - materials.

As the most basic discipline, materials science has always been an important thing that determines the level of science and technology of the whole country and civilization, and it is also one of the basic disciplines that the empire has been vigorously developing over the years.

However, it is not easy to make materials that can meet the needs of warp engines, because the powerful performance of warp engines is theoretically only degenerate materials can meet the needs of warp engines, but degenerate materials can be different from ordinary materials.

Degenerate material is a kind of material made from the perspective of atoms, theoretically there are materials made from the perspective of neutrons, quark-level materials, maybe when it comes to atoms, we may not be able to understand the power of this material, if you talk about neutron stars, black holes, you may know the power of this material.

With the development of microscopic science and technology, it is possible to synthesize materials at the atomic scale, such as atomic clusters, cluster materials, linear chains, multilayer heterostructures, ultrathin films, etc., which are characterized by low dimensionality, reduced symmetry, and significant geometric features.

But it is only possible, when it is really actually operated, it is difficult to really say that the material you need from the perspective of the atom, the unit of the atom is too small, and the current science and technology can only achieve the nanometer level at most, and the atom is much smaller than the nanometer.

First of all, we need to understand their size, nanometer is a unit of length, 1 nanometer is one billionth of a meter, denoted as nm. 1 nanometer is equal to the length of 10 hydrogen atoms lined up next to each other, and because the diameter of each atom is different, 1 nanometer may be equal to the length of the arrangement of atoms of dozens of other elements.

20 nanometers is equivalent to almost 1/3000th of a hair!

What we usually call nanotechnology refers to the technology that studies the specific phenomena and functions of substances in the nanoscale (100 nanometers to 0.1 nanometers), and creates new materials by directly manipulating and arranging atoms and molecules.

The emergence of nanotechnology is first due to the invention of scanning tunneling microscope (STM), which can magnify tens of millions of times, which allows scientists to observe the microscopic world from a nano perspective.

Since the early 90s of the 20th century, nanotechnology has been developing rapidly, such as nanoelectronics, nanomaterials, nanomechanics, nanobiology and other new disciplines are emerging, nanotechnology is one of the nine major sciences that will change the history of mankind in the future of scientists' language.

In fact, today's scientists are able to observe information at the atomic level through STM technology and have a certain impact on the structure of atomic arrangement.

For example, in April 1990, two scientists from IBM in the United States used STM to observe the xenon atoms on the surface of nickel metal, inspired by the movement of the probe and xenon atoms, and tried to use the STM tip to move the xenon atoms adsorbed on the nickel metal, and arranged 35 xenon atoms on the surface of the nickel to form an "IBM" structure with a height of 5 atoms!

Scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences also used nanotechnology to create the world's smallest map of China by moving carbon atoms on the surface of graphite, which is less than 10 nanometers in size.

Since then, scientists have been very interested in moving atoms in various patterns, such as silicon atoms, sulfur atoms, iron atoms, carbon monoxide molecules, iron-based molecules......

From here, we can know that what scientists can achieve at present is to move some atoms a little and pose various patterns on the surface of the object, which cannot really create and construct the atomic structure in a three-dimensional sense, and at the same time, there is no way to create new materials from the atomic perspective on a large scale and quickly.

But even so, it is only possible to move some atoms very simply, and to arrange some atoms on the surface, scientists have also created a variety of complex nanomaterials, and the structure of copper atoms on the surface of copper can be artificially arranged, which can also increase the strength of copper by 5 times.

We all know that diamond is diamond and graphite, coke, they are composed of the same atom, that is, carbon atoms, but the properties of these materials are very different, in terms of hardness alone, diamond is the hardest material in nature, and the hardness of graphite and coke is very low.

The reason for this difference is the structure of the carbon atoms, the atomic structure of diamond, each carbon atom forms a covalent bond with the other 4 carbon atoms in the SP3 hybrid orbital, forming a tetrahedron. Because the C-C bond in diamond is very strong, the diamond has high hardness and extremely high melting point; And because all the valence electrons are confined to the covalent bond region and there are no free electrons, diamond does not conduct electricity.

In the graphite structure, the carbon atoms in the same layer are hybridized by sp2 to form covalent bonds, and each carbon atom is connected to three other atoms with three covalent bonds. The six carbon atoms form a regular hexagram ring on the same plane, which stretches into a lamellar structure.

Here the bond length of the C-C bond is 142pm, which is exactly in the bond length range of atomic crystals, so for the same layer, it is an atomic crystal. The carbon atoms in the same plane each have one p orbital left, and they overlap each other. Electrons are relatively free, which is equivalent to free electrons in metal, so graphite can conduct heat and electricity, which is the characteristic of metal crystals.

To put it simply, the carbon atom structure of diamond is three-dimensional, and all carbon atoms directly form a tetrahedron with each other, which is a three-dimensional structure.

The structure of graphite is that the carbon atoms form a regular 6-sided ring on the same plane, forming a lamellar structure, that is, layers of carbon atoms, but there is no connection between the carbon atoms between the layers, which is a planar structure.

A three-dimensional tetrahedral structure, a plane hexagonal structure, resulting in the material properties between diamond and graphite are far apart, and its value is also the difference between cloud and mud, the price of diamond is calculated by carats, the price of graphite is calculated by tons, and the value difference is hundreds of millions of times!

If the empire wants to research the materials used in the warp engine, it is necessary to construct the material from the perspective of the atom and turn decay into magic, for example, the atomic angle of iron is also like diamond, and it becomes a regular tetrahedral three-dimensional structure, so what kind of material will be obtained?

"It's hard!"

Li Fu couldn't help frowning when he thought of this, degenerate materials are not ordinary materials, they must be created from a very small microscopic perspective, and the traditional material synthesis and forging technology cannot be high temperature, high pressure, low temperature, hammering, synthesis and other methods, but these methods, the scientists of the empire have long studied to the extreme, and it is impossible to create degenerate materials.

"Do we have to use the methods found in the seeds of civilization?"

Li Fu, who got the seeds of civilization in the Dahan Science and Technology Empire, naturally knew from the seeds of civilization that there were many ways to obtain degenerate materials, such as the super civilization of the Dahan Science and Technology Empire, their methods of obtaining degenerate materials and quark materials were very simple, mining neutron stars and black holes.

With the current technology of the Empire, just thinking about it feels a bit fantastical, the mass of neutron stars and the power of black holes are simply not something that can be conquered by current technology.

Of course, even super civilizations are slowly developing step by step, and the method of obtaining degenerate materials in the early days of the Han technology empire was to use the powerful magnetic field binding ability to create degenerate materials.

"It seems that this method can only be used, and it is also the only method that the empire's technology can use at present, such as space compression, space folding, space collapse, etc., these methods are simply impossible for the empire now."

Li Fu thought for a long time, now it is the 22nd century, and the empire's centennial science and technology plan has been implemented for more than 20 years, but the empire has not made any substantial progress in the study of warp engines.

Just like success, others will only see your success, but they will not see how much hard work and sweat you have put in behind your success; It's like being pregnant, others only see your belly getting bigger, but they don't know how many bullets you've had in order to get pregnant.

Li Fu fell into contemplation, but he didn't notice the arrival of Chen Bin, Yu Liang, Cao Haitao, Tu Xueli and others, and the people who came came with smiles on their faces, obviously in a pretty good mood.

"Brother Fu, what are you thinking?"

Yu Liang grinned, looked at Li Fu's contemplative appearance, and asked with a smile.

"I'm thinking about degenerate materials, because it's hard to shape materials from an atomic point of view, so it seems that we have to innovate."

Li Fu smiled and motioned for everyone to sit down at will, not to be too polite.

"Academic, the Japanese are gone?"

Seeing that Tu Xueli also came over, Li Fu asked with a smile.

"Well, they're all gone, they originally wanted to see you, but I stopped them, they came here this time to establish diplomatic relations with our empire, and they also brought Wang Xizhi's 'Lan Tingxu' authentic works, but I refused, and dug a pit for them casually."

"Let them continue to expand externally, judging from the current location of the Beichuan Galaxy, it is estimated that it will not be long before they will soon reach a powerful alien civilization, and then there will be a good show."

Tu Xueli said respectfully, everyone present is an elder of the empire and an elder, even if he is the prime minister of the empire, he must be respectful, especially in the face of Li Fu.

However, when he talked about digging a pit for the Japanese, he also had a smug smile on his face, as if he saw the miserable fate of the Japanese in the future.