Senior Brother Qian's work efficiency is very high.

On the second day of Yang Xu's report, Lu Zhou received an email from the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials. Attached to the email is an experiment report, which summarizes in detail all the experimental data collected during this period.

With reliable data as the support, Lu Zhou can continue to refine his theory on this basis.

Thanks to these things, he can finally move on to the next step.

Early the next morning, Lu Zhou called Jericho into his office and spoke to him.

"I remember the last time you told me that you were going to follow me in the direction of computational materials. I'll ask you again now, are you ready? ”

Hearing this, Jericho immediately said excitedly: "Of course! Professor, I'm ready! ”

When he was an undergraduate at MIT, he completed a degree in applied mathematics and a major in applied chemistry. He is the only one of Lu Zhou's five apprentices who has a foundation in mathematics and chemistry at the same time.

Wei Wen, who was sitting at the desk next door and was working with his head down, glanced at him with some envy.

Jericho, who enrolled in the same batch as himself, has already determined the direction of his research.

However, half a year has passed, and he is still doing some study work, and has not participated in formal research at all.

Sensing the envy in Wei Wen's eyes, Lu Zhou spoke.

"You don't have to envy him, the current accumulation is to fly higher. If you're going to go in the direction of mathematics and physics, you're going to have to put in more time and sweat than he does. ”

Mathematical physics is different from computational chemistry, the latter is still growing slowly in the bud, trying to explain the phenomena in experiments with new theories, but the former has gone far beyond the current experimental level and entered uncharted territory.

An immature field is completely different from a mature field, and it takes a lot of sweat to make a breakthrough on the basis of previous research.

Wei Wen obviously knew this, so he was just envious.

Nodding, he replied simply.

"I see."

Jericho raised his hand and said energetically, "Professor, what do you need me to do?" ”

Lu Zhou didn't answer this question directly, just smiled and said.

"That's a good question, and you'll follow me to a good place in a moment. You'll know when you get there. ”

……

The first step in any research effort is to start with reading the literature.

This is true for both theoretical and applied research.

After getting the experimental data, Lu Zhou did not rush to start calculating, but plunged headlong into the flintstone library.

Originally, Lu Zhou did this work alone, but now he has two helpers, Jericho, who is interested in computational materials, and Connie, who is a postdoctoral fellow with him.

Jericho, who was sitting next to Lu Zhou and reading the literature, suddenly asked: "Professor, how did you come up with the idea of using hollow carbon balls to solve the shuttle effect of lithium-sulfur batteries?" ”

"Scientific intuition? Coupled with the inspiration from other places," Lu Zhou answered the question in a casual tone while flipping through the literature in his hand, "In fact, there is no absolutely suitable choice for the question of technical ideas, only a relatively suitable choice. ”

"Relatively suitable choice ......" chewed on this sentence repeatedly, looking at the literature in his hand, Jericho nodded thoughtfully.

With the help of two assistants, the collection of literature did not take too long for Lu Zhou,

After that, a series of work such as a literature review was completed within a week.

But the rest of the work is not so easy.

When it comes to calculations, it can only be done by Lu Zhou himself.

On the last day of March, Lu Zhou did not go to the office of the Institute for Advanced Study, and after getting up, he turned around and walked into the study next to the master bedroom on the second floor.

Sitting in a room of less than ten square meters, he made himself a cup of coffee, then opened the drawer and took out the pen and paper.

On the clean and tidy paper paper, Lu Zhou thought for a moment and wrote a line of heading-

Theoretical Model of Electrochemical Interface Structure

Electrochemical interface theory is an important pillar of modern electrochemistry and one of the classic problems in theoretical chemistry. An inappropriate analogy is like the twin prime conjecture in mathematics, which occupies a central place in a certain class of problems.

This concept can be traced back to the early 80s, when a real interfacial molecular model was proposed.

It was also since then that the classical concept of electroelectrochemistry began to transition to the modern concept of condensed matter physics.

With the development of technology, computer simulation methods such as molecular dynamics simulation and MonteCarlo simulation were born, which made the theoretical model of the electrochemical interface closer to reality.

However, even so, no one can provide a theoretical model that can be relied on to explain the changes in the microscopic nature of the various electrochemical processes that occur at the interface.

To give you just two examples, how to explain the differential capacitance curve of a polycrystalline metal electrode? How to explain the origin of the capacitance peaks in the differential capacitance curves of Hg electrodes in electrolyte solutions of different solvents?

These seemingly simple questions are not mentioned in the books.

If you answer these questions one by one, winning two or three Nobel Prizes in Chemistry is not a problem at all, and the Nobel Committee will always pay more attention to theory than to application.

After all, if these questions are answered effectively, although they may not be directly reflected in the bank card account of a certain company or the economic data of a certain country, the impact on the process of civilization is far more important than the significance of a single invention such as "modified PDMS materials".

However, even Lu Zhou cannot solve all the problems.

However, it is like the group construction method is to additive number theory.

If the interface properties can be described mathematically, a theoretical model of the electrochemical interface structure can be established on this basis. He can then build a theoretical tool that can answer all these questions!

After writing the title of the paper on scratch paper, Lu Zhou closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

When he opened his eyes again, there was nothing left in his eyes that was focused on composure like he had never seen before.

All the foreshadowing work has been completed in this half year.

For this moment, he has collected a lot of data.

Now, it's time to put the finishing touches on all the work!

……

As time passed, the paper basket in the corner of the study gradually piled up, and gradually the outline was buried in the paper ball thrown away.

Whenever Lu Zhou was tired, he turned around and went back to the bedroom to sleep, and when he woke up, he returned to the study and continued to think.

Except for eating and drinking, he didn't even go down the stairs.

As for going out, it was never from the moment he started his retreat.

I don't know how many refills were empty, and I don't know how many pieces of scratch paper were filled, but when Lu Zhou wrote the last line of the equation on the A4 paper, he suddenly stopped.

After sitting there silent for about an hour, Lu Zhou suddenly grabbed his hair a little irritably, threw away the ballpoint pen in his hand and stood up.

Pacing back and forth in the study, he kept repeating the same sentence in fragments.

"Chemistry needs my theoretical model ......"

Suddenly, Lu Zhou seemed to suddenly think of something, and his eyes became brighter and brighter.

Stopped, he looked at the mountain of manuscript paper on the table and muttered to himself.

"And I need a supercomputer ......"

"A supercomputer for computational chemistry!"