Jinling Institute for Advanced Study.

Institute of Computational Materials.

took Lu Zhou to the laboratory, sat in front of the computer and called up the test data, Yang Xu, said with emotion.

"It's incredible......"

Lu Zhou didn't ask where the incredible was for the time being, but went straight to the point: "What kind of material is that thing?" ”

"Silver," Yang Xu took a deep breath, "To be precise, it's silver and graphene!" ”

"Silver and graphene?" Looking at Yang Xu, Lu Zhou was a little surprised and said, "That's it?" ”

I was under the impression that he had read similar papers.

It's just that because I haven't studied much metal materials, I can't remember where I saw it for a while.

To be honest, he was still a little disappointed when he heard that there were only these two materials. Although he also knew that even advanced civilizations probably wouldn't pile up costs on a single wire, he didn't expect it to be so ordinary.

However, Yang Xu glanced at him speechlessly.

"What's the name of these two, it's already awesome, okay?"

As he spoke, as if to prove it, he knocked a few buttons down on his keyboard.

Soon, a TEM image was displayed on the screen.

I saw that on that image, black and gray patches were intertwined, interweaving a layer of neat and delicate texture in the two-dimensional space of the plane, completely revealing the secrets of the nanoscale in the silver wire.

Pointing to several key areas on the image, Yang Xu didn't explain much, and continued to speak, "Look at these places and you'll know." ”

Leaning over the computer screen, Lu Zhou looked in the direction of his index finger.

It was seen that the approximately spherical cluster of silver atoms with a particle size between 1 and 5 nm was bonded together with a single layer of graphene of similar transverse size.

Soon, Lu Zhou's eyebrows furrowed slightly.

Even though he didn't study much about metal materials, he saw something unusual about them.

It's not a question of whether it's so good or not.

It's a question of whether you can do it or not......

To make graphene alloys based on metal materials, it is necessary to bond the metal nanoparticles with graphene.

At present, only the unpopular powder metallurgy technology can do this, but even powder metallurgy technology cannot bond graphene and silver nanoparticles to such a perfect extent.

It is no exaggeration to say that the silver strand, which is as slender as hair, is simply a work of art.

Seeing that Lu Zhou didn't speak, Yang Xu continued in an emotional tone.

"Powder metallurgy is more cutting-edge, but also relatively unpopular, I don't know much about this part. But taking 3D printing technology as an example, the best metal powder is about 10,000 meshes, which is almost 13 microns. Some nano-ceramic materials use powders that may be a little finer, but also at the micron level. ”

"Although some laboratories can also achieve ultrafine grinding at 20nm and below...... But the powder is almost impossible to store in a normal environment, let alone bond with graphene chips. ”

It is not only difficult to prepare, but also difficult to screen, and more difficult to preserve.

The higher the mesh number and the smaller the particle size, the more susceptible it is to oxidation and the more prone to agglomeration.

The only two seemingly feasible ways to solve the problem are either to disperse it in a special way at the same time as it is smelted, or to mix it with graphene chips and spray it directly on the substrate at the same time as the powder is generated.

Leaning back in the chair, Yang Xu sighed.

"As you can see, the difficulty of this thing is not in the technology itself, but in the realization of the production process. In fact, papers on composite materials such as Ag/GF, Ag/GO, and AgFe/rGO can be said to be endless a few years ago due to the rapid development of the electronics industry. ”

For example, the indium tin oxide used to make mobile phone screens has fragile properties, and many scholars have proposed to combine silver nanowires with graphene to develop a new generation of bendable flexible screens. According to the limited experimental data, the mechanical properties of this material are quite excellent, and the resistivity is much lower than that of ordinary metals...... When I was a postdoc at MIT, there was a lab doing research on this. ”

Looking away from the screen, Lu Zhou asked, "What happened later?" ”

Yang Xu shrugged: "I don't know, but I guess most of the projects can't go on." Indium tin oxide is not cheap, but silver is superior. Even if this technology is made, most of the people will not use it. ”

Thinking of this, Lu Zhou's expression was a little strange.

If it is a luxury to use silver for a mobile phone screen, then what is it to use silver for a wire?

However, Lu Zhou was relieved to think that if he could even do space travel, space mining would probably not be a difficult task.

For a civilization with this technology, silver may be worth a little more than copper.

Looking at the data on the computer screen, Yang Xu's eyes were full of curiosity.

After some hesitation, he finally couldn't help but ask, "Where did you get this thing?" ”

It's the same as Lu Zhou's feelings.

In his opinion, that thumb-length silver wire is like a work of art!

It is no exaggeration to say that its existence has simply subverted the industry's perception of metallurgical technology.

However, Lu Zhou did not answer his confusion, but simply replied: "State secrets, you just need to help me do the opposite, it is not good for you to know too much about other things." ”

Lu Zhou didn't explain much about this issue, because there was no need for it at all.

Even without the Lingyun Medal, he didn't need to explain anything to anyone.

Or take 10,000 steps back, even if you need him to explain something, it only needs to explain to one person.

And this kind of thing can only happen in one situation.

That is his behavior, which seriously endangers national security.

In addition, it is no exaggeration to say that even those who are in charge of his security, those who are responsible for helping him keep secrets, have no right to investigate the "secret" itself.

However, when he saw Yang Xu's surprised appearance, Lu Zhou was also secretly glad in his heart.

Luckily, he only cut out a small sample.

If you let this guy know that he still has a bunch of these things, I don't know if he will be shocked to doubt his life.

"Okay......"

Shrugging his shoulders helplessly, Yang Xu reluctantly accepted this perfunctory statement.

If it comes to confidentiality, it really doesn't do him much good to know too much.

After a pause, Yang Xu continued.

"But it's not easy to reverse this thing. At least I can't figure out how to make this thing just yet. ”

Lu Zhou: "What if silver nanoparticles are relaxed to the micron level? ”

Yang Xu hesitated and said, "The difficulty still exists, but if you are interested, we can give it a try." But ......"

Lu Zhou: "But? ”

"But does it make sense?" "Although I admit that the resistivity properties of this Ag/GF material are excellent, considering the price of silver, its prospects for industrial application are almost zero." ”

It takes a lot of effort to figure out the mystery, and at best it can only produce a "beautiful" paper.

This kind of thing may arouse the interest of ordinary researchers, but for Lu Zhou and Yang Xu, it is actually of little significance.

After all, unlike mathematical physics, materials science itself is an application-based discipline......

For Yang Xu's question, Lu Zhou also thought about it for a long time.

To be honest, he was also a little hesitant in his heart, whether there was any value in recycling this technology.

However, in the end, Lu Zhou still made up his mind in his heart and spoke.

"I can't answer your question, at least not yet."

"But my gut tells me it's worth it."