In the offices of Science Island Laboratory and Xiao Yi.
Looking at a new carbon structure simulated on the computer, Xiao Yi rubbed his chin with a slight smile on his lips.
This new carbon structure mainly forms a three-layer structure, with carbon atoms neatly distributed on these three layers.
Of course, is this the most important thing? The most important thing is the chemical bonds formed between these carbon atoms, which are quite intricate. Overall, the three layers of carbon atoms seem to form a braid.
It is precisely because of this structure that Xiao Yi is now simply named Twisted Carbon.
Hmm... maybe there's a bit of his bad taste in it.
If this material is finally created and becomes the most important material for nuclear fusion.
He also wanted to know how people would understand the name.
However, having said that, although it looks like a braid-like structure, in fact, from an overall perspective, you can find that the final lattice structure is very regular and symmetrical.
Such a lattice structure gives Twisted Carbon a characteristic that other ordinary structures do not have: ultra-high lattice vibration transmissibility.
In solid materials, temperature is mainly reflected in the vibration of the crystal lattice in the microscopic field.
Atoms in solid materials are arranged into an ordered lattice structure. When the temperature rises or is affected by external influences, these atoms will begin to vibrate. These vibrations can be quantized into phonons, and phonons are the main carriers of heat and sound propagation in solids.
The higher the lattice vibration transmissibility, the stronger its thermal conductivity.
Under the new structure of Twisted Carbon, its thermal conductivity is several times higher than that of diamond, the most thermally conductive material in the world.
Of course, diamond is diamond, and it is also carbon. The new structure now developed by Xiao Yi is also composed of carbon, so its ultra-high thermal conductivity is not entirely a coincidence.
However, just having high thermal conductivity is not enough. Just as he has made it clear before, if you want to become the first wall material, just having thermal conductivity is not enough.
How can we withstand the impact of high-energy particles?
This is another feature of the Twisted Carbon structure.
What you need to know is that graphite, another form of carbon, can itself be used as a neutron moderator in a nuclear reactor. Carbon atoms collide with fast neutrons, converting the kinetic energy of the neutrons into thermal energy, slowing down the neutrons.
Under the structure of Twisted Carbon, due to its compactness and intricate structure, when carbon atoms collide with high-energy neutrons, the kinetic energy absorbed can be quickly transferred to other surrounding carbon atoms. In the end, the energy of those high-energy neutrons will be evenly distributed throughout the structure. After that, the peripheral coolant will work to absorb all the heat energy.
As a result, it becomes impossible for high-energy neutrons to easily knock through the entire first wall material.
"It's like an egg."
Xiao Yi smiled slightly.
"When you hold the egg hard, you can't crush it easily."
"The main reason is that the force exerted on the eggshell can be evenly distributed over the entire eggshell."
However, the egg shell can withstand the force of pinching, but it cannot withstand the force of knocking, because when the egg is knocked, its stress point becomes smaller, and the final force cannot be evenly transmitted to the entire egg shell.
However, the structure of Twisted Carbon can completely transmit the force received at one point to the entire structure.
Of course, even if you pinch an egg, if the force you pinch exceeds the limit that it can withstand, the egg shell will eventually break.
However, for Twisted Carbon, there is no need to worry.
Anyway, the energy of neutrons generated by the deuterium-tritium fusion reaction can be calculated, and then how long it takes for these energies to be fully absorbed by Twisted Carbon, and how large a volume of Twisted Carbon can stably absorb the energy of these high-energy neutrons. In this way, they can create modular Twisted Carbon walls that can withstand high-energy neutrons stably and for a long time.
In this case, the only thing that can destroy the Twisted Carbon structure is if a single carbon atom is continuously impacted by multiple high-energy neutrons in a short period of time. This will cause it to be unable to quickly transfer the absorbed kinetic energy, causing the neutrons to be destroyed.
However, this probability is quite small. After all, what you need to know is that the atom is not a ball, and its interior is quite empty. Therefore, in most cases, neutrons will directly pass through the surface layer of the material and hit the atomic nucleus inside. There is even a certain probability that the neutron will directly pass through the entire first wall material.
Because of this, a layer of neutron shielding material is also installed on the outer layer of Tokamak device, in order to absorb these neutrons that can pass through heavy materials and leak out, thereby avoiding radiation risks to workers.
Radiation can easily cause cancer because subatomic particles such as neutrons directly pass through human cells and directly damage the atoms inside the cell's DNA, causing the DNA to directly mutate. If the cells cannot be repaired by the DNA damage mechanism in time, they will continue to divide and proliferate, thus increasing the risk of cancer.
Of course, it is precisely because the volume of neutrons is very small, and the volume of atomic nuclei is also very small, therefore when neutrons enter the interior of the first wall material, it is difficult for multiple high-energy neutrons to collide with the nucleus of a single atom at the same time.
Therefore, according to Xiao Yi's calculations, only 10 cm thick Twisted Carbon is needed to last at least 20 years in a Tokamak device like EAST.
Of course, this is mainly limited by the size of EAST. The larger the device, the more high-energy neutrons it can generate per unit time under the fixed 150 million degrees and the new Greenwald limit. The lifespan of the first wall material is mainly determined by the generation speed of high-energy neutrons.
As for the current size of EAST... it is actually relatively small. After all, this thing is just an experimental equipment used for technical verification.
Its main radius is only 1.7 meters, and its small radius is only 0.4 meters.
For example, the scale of the planned ITER has a main radius of 6.2 meters and a small radius of 2 meters. Its plasma volume is almost 280 times that of EAST.
Including ITER, it can only be said to be an experimental equipment used for technical verification. Therefore, if controllable nuclear fusion is truly realized, the device to be built will not be a trivial matter like this.
All in all, whether in terms of thermal conductivity or resistance to radiation damage, Twisted Carbon has reached the limit that Xiao Yi can design today.
In addition to these two major properties, Twisted Carbon is also quite outstanding in other properties necessary for first wall materials.
What can be said is that for a long time to come, no matter how we design, it will be impossible to break through such a structure.
If you want to make a breakthrough, I'm afraid you will have to come up with a new theory.
However, even Xiao Yi cannot think of this theory now.
"Okay, now, the first step is completed."
Taking a deep breath, Xiao Yi leaned on the back of his office chair and took a sip of the tea next to him.
The next step 2 is how to synthesize this material.
And this will be an extremely difficult step.
Putting down the teacup in his hand, Xiao Yi shook his head helplessly. How could such a complex structure be synthesized?
This is also the main difficulty in materials research.
Even if he had the help of Material Mastery, he could not avoid the following difficulties.
The biggest use of Material Mastery is probably cost saving.
"Okay, we have already researched this point. It would not be good if we give up temporarily now."
Shaking his head, he said no more and prepared to go to the laboratory to conduct experiments.
What follows is bound to be a long process.
Xiao Yi devoted all his time and energy to the research on the synthesis method of Twisted Carbon.
At the same time, because of the importance of this material, he didn't ask anyone to help him. At most, he would have people help him with some simple experiments when he couldn't spare the time.
Through continuous improvement of some existing processes or some innovative synthesis technologies, although it is still far from the final goal of Twisted Carbon, Xiao Yi unexpectedly produced a lot of by-products.
Although most of the by-products are of no use, there are still a few materials, which surprised Xiao Yi.
It feels like it's crooked during a lottery draw.
Although it is not what he wants, it can still be called SSR.
For example, an amorphous carbon material.
Amorphous carbon is a free activated carbon that has no crystal structure. It is structurally similar to carbon black, but is different in some microscopic details.
However, the most important thing is that it inherits an important characteristic of carbon black, the ability to absorb waves!
This material has good electrical conductivity, so when electromagnetic waves irradiate its surface, the conductive network formed between the coatings will generate an induced current. During the conduction process, the current generates heat due to resistance, thereby dissipating electromagnetic energy and achieving the absorption of electromagnetic waves.
In addition, it has small particles and a large specific surface area. There are a large number of interfaces between the composite material and the matrix. Due to the relaxation effect caused by interface polarization, it also has excellent absorption capabilities for electromagnetic waves.
In addition, it also has many excellent properties, which make it a very excellent absorbing material.
Of course, it is impossible to completely crush other absorbing materials. After all, there are different types of electromagnetic waves, such as absorption intensity and frequency bandwidth. For these different categories, different materials also have their own capabilities.
However, this new absorbing material is not a coating itself, but it can be used as a conductive additive to cooperate with other absorbing coatings to improve the overall absorbing performance. Therefore, to a certain extent, it can also be called the best absorbing material from a comprehensive comparison.
This material is of no use to the research of Xiao Yi, but it is a treasure for those who study fighter jets.
So Xiao Yi simply took out the experimental report and asked Wang Li to find a senior military officer and hand the experimental report to the military researchers responsible for studying absorbing materials.
As for what this material is called... Since it was the first material with practical uses that Xiao Yi came up with during his research on Twisted Carbon, he simply named it MHT-1.
In addition to MHT-1, there is also MHT-2.
MHT-2 is a carbon fiber material with high specific strength and high specific modulus, and it has the performance of Twisted Carbon to a certain extent, and its energy absorption capacity is very strong.
This makes it very suitable as an armor material for combat vehicles. It has excellent resistance to attacks from various conventional weapons, such as armor-piercing projectiles, armor-piercing projectiles, high-explosive projectiles, etc.
When Xiao Yi came up with this thing, everyone was speechless.
Although I knew that some by-products would be produced during the research process, it turned out that the first two usable by-products could be used in the military?
Okay, Xiao Yi didn't have much to say about this, so in the end he asked Wang Li to hand over the experimental report to people in the military again and ask the relevant researchers if they were interested in this thing.
However, when MHT-3 came out, Xiao Yi finally felt that there was finally a non-military technology.
MHT-3 is synthesized by Xiao Yi through various methods. It is the most similar material to Twisted Carbon in structure. It has a three-layer structure, but it is not as complex as Twisted Carbon. However, this structure gives it ultra-high carrier mobility.
Its electron mobility can reach 180,000cm/V·s, which is only slightly worse than graphene. It is very conducive to electrical signal transmission and processing.
In addition, its surface has various dangling bonds and functional groups, which makes it have good chemical properties.
Coupled with various other excellent properties, this material has the potential to become a carbon-based material.
Currently, the development of silicon-based chips has stagnated, and the manufacturing process is gradually approaching the theoretical limit. Finding other solutions has become another focus in the chip field.
MHT-3 undoubtedly makes the realization of carbon-based chips a hope.
However, Xiao Yi has not done much research on chips, so he has no interest in researching this thing for the time being. Even if he does come up with something, it is still too far away from the actual industrialization of carbon-based chips, so it is better to wait until later to ask other experts in this field if they are interested before making plans.
In short, so far, Xiao Yi has produced these three valuable by-products. The first two can be used directly, while the third one has very broad prospect value.
In this way, as time passed, when the time came to June, several uninvited guests came to Science Island Laboratory.
"Professor Xiao, hello, hello, I have long admired your name."
In the office, there was a group of people standing, and an old researcher headed by them stepped forward, shook hands with Xiao Yi and said.
"We belong to Institute 603. I am Chen Weidong. I am currently the team leader of the research institute Weapons and Stealth Design Group."
"We received an experimental report from you. The report said that you developed an absorbing material with a frequency range of 1-20GHz, a maximum reflection loss of -55dB, and an absorption bandwidth of 11.6GHz, right?"
The old researcher was straightforward and stated his intention directly.
He looked at Xiao Yi with bright eyes, looking very much looking forward to Xiao Yi's answer.
Xiao Yi raised his eyebrows, he was really here for MHT-1.
However, just as he was about to speak, there was a knock on the office door again.
Wang Hao walked in. "Professor Xiao, people from Army Research Institute are here too."
Then I saw several people in military uniforms standing behind Wang Hao, looking inside.
Xiao Yi: "Uh... let's come in together."
Obviously, these newcomers are here for MHT-2.
He couldn't help but sigh, these two groups were so fast. Not long after the two experimental reports were sent, they came directly to the door so quickly.