"Alas!"

Seeing that the bright band of light on the screen went out and the stellar simulator began to gradually stop functioning, everyone in the laboratory couldn't help but sigh with some disappointment in their eyes.

95 seconds, only 5 seconds away from the 100-second target set for the first time by adjusting and optimizing the plasma turbulence model.

"Let's speed up data collection and sorting, and check the condition of the equipment."

Tomorrow, when the stellar simulator stopped, Zhang Qing stood up and commanded as soon as possible: "The time is 95 seconds, which did not meet the expectations at the beginning, but the experiment was also successful."

When the equipment is checked, we will start the test again, obtain the current data for the next adjustment, and the constraint time will exceed 5 minutes after the next adjustment! ”

Under Zhang Qing's voice, all the researchers in the entire laboratory moved quickly according to their respective groups.

"Lu Lu." After the order was completed, Zhang Qing hesitated and walked to Xiang Lu Yi's side.

"What's wrong?" Lu Yi asked a little strangely.

"I want to stop the deuterium-tritium fusion experiment, use hydrogen, and wait until the control scheme is more optimized, and the plasma confinement is more optimized before the actual fusion experiment."

Zhang Qing told Lu Yi what she thought, and she took a general look at the expenses of the laboratory during this time, not counting staff salaries and power losses, damage and replacement of single stellar mimic components, and the procurement of tritium......

The sum of these three items alone is more than $6 million, which is a horrific amount of money.

Thinking that other research institutes use hydrogen at this stage, tritium is rarely or even non-used, so Zhang Qing has this idea.

The fusion temperature of hydrogen, without the terrifying pressure inside the sun's core, would require at least 1 billion degrees Celsius or more to fuse, a temperature that no controlled nuclear fusion device can reach.

Therefore, if hydrogen is used for the test, the stellar simulator will not undergo nuclear fusion reactions, so that no neutron radiation will be produced except for plasma penetrating the magnetic field to irradiate the inner wall.

Without neutron radiation, the rate of depletion of the inner wall material would be nearly tenfold, and the staggering price of tritium would be saved.

According to Zhang Qing's calculations, if hydrogen is used for experiments, the cost of the experiment can be reduced by at least 10 to 12 times.

"Yes, I asked Xu Ying not to purchase tritium from the nuclear industry group for the time being, but other things that need to be spent should not be saved."

Lu Yi saw that Zhang Qing wanted to save money, and smiled and agreed to this proposal.

Maybe it took 6 million US dollars in more than ten days Zhang Qing felt very scary, but there was a plan on the negative three floors upstairs that might cost 10 billion yuan, so it really didn't feel much compared to 6 million US dollars.

The disadvantage of hydrogen experiments is that only plasma confinement can be studied, and other deflectors and inner wall materials are resistant to neutron irradiation, energy conversion, tritium retention, tritium proliferation cycle, etc., and it is temporarily impossible to collect data for research.

According to Lu Yi's idea, now the laboratory has enough personnel and is not bad for funds, and it is completely acceptable to directly complete the data collection on the isotope tritium first, and the higher cost will bring faster progress in the future.

However, Zhang Qing felt that the money was too expensive, and he wanted to use hydrogen for research for a period of time, and then use tritium when the ion confinement scheme was more perfect, so it would be no problem.

Inspiration is very important in the process of scientific research, and he doesn't want to let her hesitate to start an experiment because of money.

Agreeing with Zhang Qing's opinion, Lu Yi chatted with her for a few words and received a wave of satisfaction index, and then asked: "What is the peak temperature of the stellar simulator tomorrow?" Can helium-3 fusion be met? ”

At present, the main energy carriers released by DT fusion are neutron flow, high radiation and the application prospect of boiling water, as well as a series of tritium stagnation problems, which can be used for land-based power stations and large-scale nuclear power equipment, but not for miniaturization and mobility.

In addition, helium-3 fusion produces very few neutrons, which can also greatly reduce the pressure and demand of the deflector, which is the current technical shortcoming of Lu Yi's side.

"The peak can reach 135 million degrees Celsius, but this temperature has a relatively large pressure on the magnetic field and is not stable."

Zhang Qing shook his head and said: "The stable maximum temperature is around 110 million degrees Celsius, which is not enough to meet the needs of helium-3 fusion. ”

Nuclear fusion has two elements, temperature and pressure, the temperature of the center of the sun is only tens of millions of degrees Celsius, but the terrifying pressure brought by its own gravity combined with this temperature allows hydrogen to fuse all the way to iron.

The controlled temperature of nuclear fusion cannot have this pressure, so it can only be compensated for by temperature.

110 million degrees Celsius, after making up for the pressure problem, you can only play tritium-deuterium fusion, helium-3 and deuterium, or pure helium-3 fusion, which cannot meet the demand for the time being.

"I see."

Lu Yi knew it in his heart and said, "You and Xiaomeng will go to work first, I'll go to the materials laboratory to take a look, just now Brother Hu sent a message saying that there was a harvest." ”

"Hmm."

Zhang Qing nodded, turned around and walked to the console to analyze the test data just now with Lin Meng, and announced that the next test would be conducted with hydrogen.

From the negative fifth floor of the stellar mimic area to the negative third floor of the material laboratory, standing at the door and waiting for a second to verify the permission, Lu Yi walked in.

"Brother Hu, how is it?"

Walking into the materials laboratory, on the operating table, a thin thread the size of a hair attracted Lu Yi's attention.

"Boss, good performance!"

Seeing Lu Yi coming, Hu Feng took a test report that had just been released, and said excitedly: "The critical temperature of superconductivity is 101K, the critical current of superconductivity is 1.98 times that of copper oxide superconducting materials, the critical magnetic field strength is 1.69 times that of copper oxide, and the actual thermal conductivity is 7.61 times that of pure copper!" ”

"7.61 times the thermal conductivity of pure copper?"

Lu Yi was surprised, but then suddenly realized that in the industrial field, graphene is often used as an expensive and efficient thermal conductive agent.

Good thermal conductivity means that the liquid helium system used for cooling can greatly reduce the space, so that the magnetic field coil outside the stellar can be denser and the magnetic field strength generated is higher.

The better the critical current and critical magnetic field parameters, the stronger the magnetic field can be generated per unit space through a stronger current, which has a great effect on the stability of magnetic confinement.

Lu Yi came to the tunneling microscope and looked at the atomic distribution structure of the superconducting graphene wire shown on it.

A large number of carbon atoms are arranged in a hexagonal shape to form a six-grid pattern, the overall shape of the net is like a diamond, but the water chestnut has a curvature.

The longitudinal dislocation of 1.05° between the nets is stacked, and a long column is pulled along the vertical direction, neatly like a work of art.

"Brother Hu, how do you think there is no round hole in the middle that has been removed from the carbon nanotubes, you have improved the experimental idea?"

Lu Yi looked at it for a while, pointed to the graphene band with no round hole in the middle of the simulated image, and asked with some curiosity.

According to the initial experimental idea, it is necessary to remove the carbon nanotubes in the middle after the formation of superconducting graphene, which will definitely leave traces in the middle, but now there are no traces.

"I changed the experimental idea and started to use the methods of chemical displacement dissolution and mechanical peeling.

However, after actual operation, it was found that neither method worked.

Mechanical exfoliation requires the graphene to be peeled at the moment when it is just generated and fixed, otherwise the carbon nanotubes in the center will stick to each other with the graphene bands.

This is very strict with the time requirements, and the diameter of the carbon nanotubes is too small, and the operation accuracy requirements are also very strict, so this method is eliminated.

The chemical substitution method, because graphene ribbons and carbon nanotubes are both carbon materials, compounds that can replace dissolved carbon nanotubes can also affect the generated graphene bands.

After the test, the length of the superconducting graphene wire prepared by this method is very short, and multiple connections are required to meet the macroscopic requirements.

And because it is displacement and dissolution, it will also affect graphene, which makes it difficult to control the quality of the prepared wire, and even produces graphene layer fault and loses superconductivity.

After the failure of the two methods, after many experiments and researches, the final method was to juxtapose the two carbon nanotube growth lines, but adjust the bending arc positively and negatively with each other.

This bending arc is just enough to tilt the graphene layer growing on it by 0.52°, and the radians of the growth lines of the two carbon nanotubes are positive and negative to each other, and finally the chemical vapor precipitation method is used to grow the graphene layer on the two carbon nanotubes.

Before the initial structure and morphology of the graphene layer are completely fixed, the distance between the two carbon nanotubes is slowly pulled apart, so that the graphene layer continues to grow in the direction of the pull-out, and finally the superconducting graphene with 1.05° dislocation overlap can be realized in the middle overlapping part.

With this method, the graphene layer will grow skewed at the beginning of the distance, but we experimented for 12 days to find a graphene band that can stretch and grow thousands of nanometers in width, so as to complete the fabrication of superconducting graphene wires.

Now what you see is the superconducting graphene wire left after the structure is stabilized, and the non-overlapping joint part is cut and intercepted. ”

Lu Yi nodded and asked, "What about the cost?" What is the cost, and if the preparation process is improved, can it be applied to industrial large-scale preparation? ”

Understanding the birth process of this superconducting graphene wire, Lu Yi asked two other crucial questions.

cost, and whether it can be industrially prepared in batches.