Research starts with PhD students

Chapter 334 Room-temperature superconductivity? Zhang Shuo: What are the superconductivity experts doing?
The latest gravity spacecraft developed by Liu Zhiwen's team is code-named "Shark Type 1".

The Shark 1 prototype has been assembled and is undergoing testing of its parts and as a whole.

The most important parts tested were the gravity system and the hydrogen bomb battery.

Gravity manufacturing technology is relatively mature, and even if the technology is upgraded, the technical foundation remains unchanged.

The hydrogen bomb battery is tested for circuit connectivity and output problems. Since it is not a newly manufactured battery, it has been running very stably and does not require large-scale testing.

There is no need to spend too much energy on the cockpit and operational issues. In fact, during the testing and flight test stages, the cockpit and the pilot are not important to the spacecraft itself.

During the spacecraft testing process, most of the operations are done electronically on the ground, and the pilot will not be allowed to operate alone.

Even if the pilot does nothing, the ground staff can control the spacecraft well.

The most time-consuming part of spacecraft testing is the electronic system.

The electronic system, or soft facilities, is of vital importance. Only a perfect electronic system can ensure the performance and operation of the gravity spacecraft.

Liu Zhiwen told Zhang Shuo many work issues related to spacecraft testing, and also talked about the spacecraft parameters, including the maximum strength of the gravity system, the spacecraft's ascent speed, output power, maximum lift-off altitude, endurance, etc.

The Shark Type 1 is powered by its own gravity system, and its own power will not be affected by air density. In theory, it can fly into outer space.

Of course, this is actually impossible.

The spacecraft is not designed with complex features to withstand the harsh environment of space, and the maximum altitude set by the system is no more than 60,000 meters.

If you want to reach an altitude of more than 60,000 meters, the driver needs to manually unlock it.

During the flight test phase, the maximum altitude does not exceed 5 meters.

In addition, the maximum flight time of the spacecraft does not exceed 24 hours, which means that the spacecraft needs to return to the ground after being in the air for 24 hours.

This data is not surprising.

Zhang Shuo also knew that the flight time existed to ensure the safe and stable operation of the spacecraft.

After launching, the Shark-24 can fly for 48 hours, or even 72 hours or 24 hours, but after more than hours, the spacecraft itself may pose a safety hazard.

For example, the gravity system might malfunction.

Liu Zhiwen also talked about this. He sighed depressedly, "From a technical logic point of view, the hydrogen bomb battery can continuously supply electricity, so the spacecraft can keep running..."

“But in reality, it’s influenced by the materials and technology.”

The main reason is that the gravitational system has been running at high power, including the equipment that produces strong magnets, which will continuously dissipate heat.

During the operation of the spacecraft, it also needs to continuously consume coolant to ensure that the gravity system can operate stably.

In addition, even the wires cannot withstand continuous high-power operation, let alone sophisticated electronic equipment.

"High-power operation will cause the conductor to continue to dissipate heat. Cooling alone cannot solve all problems."

"This most fundamental problem limits the performance of the spacecraft..."

Liu Zhiwen said this with some depression.

In many people's minds, a gravity spacecraft would be a perfect aircraft. With a hydrogen bomb battery that can continuously maintain the gravity system, the power would be inexhaustible. However, the gravity system needs to continuously generate strong electromagnetics, so it must maintain high-power operation, which affects the continuous operation time of the spacecraft.

After hearing this, Zhang Shuo smiled and offered a solution, "You can build two systems and two sets of hardware systems."

"While one system is running, the other is resting. In this way, the battery life problem is solved."

"Uh~~~"

Liu Chengjie exclaimed in surprise.

If you stand next to Liu Chengjie, you can see the surprise on his face. He didn't expect Zhang Shuo to come up with a solution immediately.

This solution does not sound difficult, and their team also thought of it, but it took them a long time to discuss it.

"As expected of Zhang Shuo..."

Liu Chengjie thought about it and shook his head, then continued, "This is indeed a solution, but it will take up more space and the design will become more complicated, but it will definitely work."

"If the next generation of spacecraft has a need for sustained flight, we will adopt this solution."

……

Zhang Shuo put down the phone with a smile on his face. He was looking forward to the test flight of the "Shark 1".

'Shark Type 1' uses strong gravity as its power source and creates its own strong gravity to accelerate the spacecraft.

Based on this technology, the Shark Type 1 will not be restricted by air density and will become very flexible.

To a certain extent, it can be said to be perfect.

Although there are still some minor problems, such as having to return to the ground after flying for 24 hours, these problems can be solved.

In fact, the best solution is room-temperature superconductivity, but if you think about it carefully, you will know that the difficulty of studying room-temperature superconductivity is more complicated than making a gravity spacecraft.

That is almost impossible to achieve.

"Superconducting technology still can't keep up." Zhang Shuo made himself a cup of coffee, then sighed and said to Liu Mingkun.

"Superconductivity..."

Liu Mingkun shook his head and said, "The technology in this area is indeed not up to par. It seems that it has not been developed for many years."

"Yes."

Zhang Shuo took a sip of coffee and continued, "Many experiments and research in the new physics field require the use of superconductors."

"Let's not talk about room-temperature superconductivity. If the technology is improved a little bit, for example, if we develop a material with a critical temperature above 50K and can be used on a large scale, it would be fine. But after all these years, it seems..."

He shook his head as he spoke, and suddenly remembered one of his studies, "I remember completing an algorithm study on the fermion Hubbard model, which can calculate approximate solutions more quickly."

"At that time, I thought that if I had a simpler calculation, I could get many solutions, and use them to study the operating mechanism of superconductors. But now..."

He said he couldn't help but complain, "I don't know what those superconductivity experts are doing. They haven't achieved any results."

“It’s still fruitful.”

Liu Mingkun spoke for the "superconductivity experts," "In recent years, there have been breakthroughs in the field of superconductivity, including theoretical mechanisms and superconducting materials."

"Last month I saw a piece of news saying that the Key Laboratory of Superconductivity has developed a nickel-based superconducting material with a critical temperature of over 100K." "The problem is, it's not practical..."

Zhang Shuo sighed and shook his head.

Liu Mingkun also pursed his lips and said, "They are all laboratory materials. They are indeed not practical."

The two continued talking about superconductivity.

Superconducting materials are very important in new physics directions.

Many related experiments require the creation of a strong electromagnetic environment. For example, the accelerator of a particle collider and the strong magnetic interference hyperon decay experiment of a chaotic force field also require the creation of a strong circular magnetic field.

The ion acceleration channel of the ion generating equipment also requires a strong electromagnetic environment.

The gravity system does not require superconducting strong magnets. The reason is not that it is not needed, but that superconducting strong magnets are too troublesome and are not practical to use in aircraft. Otherwise, the gravity produced will not only be several times that of the earth, but may be dozens of times.

No matter how high the gravity intensity is, it is meaningless if it can only stay in the laboratory, so Zhang Shuo does not spend energy on this aspect.

Superconducting materials are needed in all research fields, and the most widely used is the widely used niobium-titanium alloy.

Niobium-titanium alloy is an alloy material composed of niobium and titanium. Its main phase structure is body-centered cubic β phase, which has a good solid solution strengthening effect, giving it high strength and other properties.

The critical temperature of niobium-titanium alloy is usually around 9 to 10K, and it is widely used in the field of superconducting technology, such as the manufacture of superconducting magnets, magnetic resonance imaging equipment, particle accelerators, maglev trains, and so on.

The superconducting critical temperature is below 10K, and the cost of maintaining low temperature is still very high.

In today's superconducting field, there are many critical problems of materials that can reach tens of K, entering the range where liquid nitrogen can be used for cooling, but mud-titanium alloy is still widely used.

There is certainly a reason for this.

Most of those materials with so-called critical temperatures of tens of K are special materials prepared in laboratories.

Some are too expensive to be manufactured and used on a large scale; others have a current carrying limit that is too low to be of practical use.

In others, the requirements for reaching the superconducting state are too stringent.

and many more.

"It would be great if we could develop a room-temperature superconducting material that could be widely used."

"Room temperature is too high, even over 100K is fine..."

Zhang Shuo thought about establishing a task to manufacture room-temperature superconducting materials.

Then, it failed.

This is not surprising at all. Room-temperature superconducting materials are just a conceptual thing and the ultimate goal of superconducting technology research. Of course, it is not something that can be easily researched.

He didn't particularly care.

Anyway, there are no special needs for the time being, so it’s fine as long as the technology is sufficient.

Superconducting technology is indeed very important, but he cannot be the one to research all technologies. He is also a layman in materials science and he just tried it out of curiosity.

……

Zhang Shuo did not take the problem of superconducting materials seriously.

He is looking forward to the test flight of the 'Shark 1' next month and will continue to focus on his own research. At the same time, he is also paying attention to the work of the Chaos Field Project Team in researching and designing quantum entanglement measurement.

The work is progressing smoothly.

After the Chaos Force Field project team determined the next step in designing and measuring quantum entanglement, it was also announced on the website platform.

Then, a large number of quantum technology teams and top scholars came to us.

The influence of the chaos force field experiment is too great.

The research on new physical theories and technologies is a weather vane of scientific and technological development, and every scholar engaged in physics research hopes to be involved in it.

The same is true for scholars in the field of quantum physics.

Previous research on new physics seemed to have nothing to do with quantum physics, and the two seemed to be in two different fields.

It is different now.

The chaos force field experiment is actually related to quantum physics?
This is an opportunity!
Many institutions and scholars in the field of quantum physics immediately applied to actively participate, and some even directly found the hadron collider experimental base, hoping to participate in the experiment and "make contributions" to subsequent research.

With the participation of a large number of top institutions and scholars, there will naturally be no problem with talent.

When they learned about the need for quantum entanglement measurement, they immediately brainstormed on how to improve and design the experimental equipment, and came up with plans one after another.

The Chaos Force Field project team has also been discussing various designs and plans.

Quantum entanglement measurement is not easy.

The chaos force field experiment lasts for a very short time. In order to carry out more precise measurements in such a short time, the device design must be very clever. After brainstorming, a feasible plan was come up with.

However, the implementation of the solution still requires overcoming a number of technical difficulties.

Yu Fei gave Zhang Shuo a brief report on the technical difficulties. "The biggest technical difficulty lies in the design of the internal strong magnetic device."

"Inside the device, another separate strong magnetic field needs to be created to cooperate with the detection of quantum entanglement."

“We did some small experiments, but found that the technology was insufficient and it was difficult to implement.”

"What technology?" Zhang Shuo asked.

"Strong magnetic manufacturing is no problem, the key is cooling down." Yu Fei explained, "It is an independent magnetic field inside the device. There is an active hyperon reaction inside the device, which has a certain temperature."

"Strong magnetism requires superconductivity, but superconductivity requires an ultra-low temperature environment."

“That’s the conflict.”

Zhang Shuo understood it carefully, and then asked, "Is it a problem of temperature conduction? Can't it be isolated by vacuum?"

"No."

Yu Fei immediately denied it, "It must be connected to the internal network, otherwise there is no way to conduct testing."

The problem now is how to make another independent superconducting strong magnetic system inside operate under the environment of hyperon decay heat dissipation.

(End of this chapter)