From top student in college to scientific research powerhouse

Chapter 68 is unoriginal; you might as well study mathematics!
Waiting is always agonizing.

Xue Kun, Zhang Minghao, Zhou Jianyong, and Chen Shuai sat side by side.

In just one hour, it felt like they had waited all day. Finally, the testing room opened, and the group rushed over.

Zhu Bingkun and Fang Huimin walked out together.

Zhu Bingkun seemed to have calmed down and didn't appear too agitated, but his wide-open mouth betrayed his feelings. "Keep your voice down!"

"Don't make noise inside, they still need to do other tests."

After he finished speaking, he looked at the group of people and said, "But we already have a general result."

Fang Huimin's eyes lit up when she saw Zhang Minghao, and she grabbed his arm, saying with a joyful expression, "Zhang Minghao, your analysis is amazing!"

"This time we've produced real tinene, and the quality is extremely high!"

"Although it is still a multilayer thin film, many direct properties can already be measured. Most importantly, the topological edge states have been verified..."

Zhang Minghao listened silently and withdrew his arm, then asked, "Have you measured the superconducting properties? Or even further, the Ising superconductivity?"

"No, not for now."

Fang Huimin shook her head, "But it's still pretty good, especially since the tinene we prepared is of very high quality."

"If we take the samples to a larger institution, we can obtain more detailed data and verify more information."

"Let's talk as we walk!"

As Zhu Bingkun spoke, he walked towards the laboratory building.

Others quickly followed.

Zhu Bingkun talked about the specific progress, just as Fang Huimin said, the biggest progress is the production of high-quality tinene and the direct measurement of edge topological state phenomena.

"The stanene we produce is of extremely high quality."

"I've seen the tinene sample prepared by Hong Zhenyu's team at Donggang Polytechnic University, and I've also seen the magnified analysis diagram and the detection signals at various locations..."

They're nowhere near as good as us!

Zhu Bingkun spoke very seriously, and his words carried great weight.

"High quality means that more characteristics can be detected."

"If you take the materials to a larger institution, such as the Donggang Institute of Intelligent Materials or the Capital Institute of Advanced Materials, they have more advanced testing equipment and can do more professional analysis."

"At that time, not only topological edge states, but also things like Ising superconductivity, topological nontriviality, and bidirectional edge penetration of topological edge states may be able to be verified..."

He suddenly sighed as he spoke.

The others also felt bad; the high-quality samples they prepared for their experiments had to be taken to other institutions and teams for testing and analysis.

Doesn't this mean we're just handing the results over to other teams?
Although the results in testing may not be significant, when publishing papers or making research reports, it is still important to emphasize the collaboration with "a certain institution or team".

It doesn't affect others much, but it's unfair to testing personnel like Fang Huimin.

They followed the project closely, analyzing various experimental residues. The experimental data accumulated in the past were all recorded by the testing personnel through repeated testing.

After the experiment made a breakthrough, their contributions were taken away.

Zhang Minghao suddenly spoke up, "No need for that trouble, and there's no need to find another team for the time being."

Everyone else immediately looked over.

Zhang Minghao laughed and said, "Don't forget, our experiment has only just begun."

"The substrate design used in this experiment was only the result of discussion."

"Without theoretical basis, relying solely on experience is certainly not the optimal design. We can fine-tune the substrate's properties and then conduct large-scale experiments."

"This will enable the production of higher quality tinene, which will be easier to detect."

Zhu Bingkun's eyes lit up immediately.

The others realized what was happening before they conducted their first experiment.

If the values ​​are adjusted further and large-scale experiments are conducted, it will certainly be possible to produce tinene of higher quality.

……

"Meeting! Meeting!"

Zhu Bingkun returned to his office and discussed the matter with Xue Kun, Zhang Minghao, and others. He immediately made a decision and shouted, "Everyone except those in the testing room, go to the second floor!"

"We need to conduct a large-scale experiment!"

His shout was loud, clearly indicating that he had made a significant decision.

This is indeed a major decision.

Large-scale experiments are not something that can be done easily. The more experiments there are, the more money is spent, including on equipment operation, materials, testing, and so on. Large-scale experiments also mean that funds are consumed rapidly.

The laboratory's metamaterials project only had a budget of over four million yuan.

More than half of the time has already been used up in the past year. If another large-scale experiment is conducted, the cost will be less than a million. At that time, the remaining inventory of materials and other consumables may not be enough, and it will be necessary to spend money to purchase and replenish them.

Once the budget is below one million, any further discoveries that you want to conduct research on may encounter funding shortages.

That would be very awkward.

However, Zhu Bingkun was full of confidence. They had actually produced high-quality multilayer tinene films and clearly detected 'topological edge states'. Their research results had exceeded expectations.

Even if all the funding is used up, the research results are sufficient to explain the project, and the project can still be used to apply for new projects.

We are now very confident in conducting large-scale experiments.

Other teams can stop their research once they have produced such high-quality tinene, because they rely on experience and luck, and through repeated experiments, they can produce even higher-quality tinene.

This is also the approach used in most materials science research, including semiconductor device manufacturing technology.

There are underlying theories, but they are incomplete and cannot provide clear guidance for the material manufacturing process; they can only offer a vague direction.

Their research is different!

Zhang Minghao identified six sets of correlations between substrate and tinene properties, which, together with Chen Shuai's set, make a total of seven sets.

Through this experiment, they were able to identify seven related variations that are directly correlated with tinene growth.

Based on this, large-scale experiments will certainly lead to progress.

Others shared similar thoughts.

Every researcher was full of confidence for the large-scale experiment, and their enthusiasm for work increased.

Large-scale experiments initially involve substrate design, but because a framework for numerical variation has been established, the design process has become a task allocation process.

Each researcher is responsible for substrates with varying numerical values ​​and related experimental work.

After the researchers held a meeting, they assigned the work to the doctoral students, who then got busy as well.

Everyone in the laboratory was mobilized.

Some people are busy manufacturing new substrates; some are directly conducting tinene growth experiments; and others are constantly conducting tests in the testing room.

Chen Shuai and his doctoral students, including Zhang Minghao, were responsible for the statistical analysis of experimental data.

Large-scale experiments also mean large-scale data.

As more data became available, data analysis became easier to draw conclusions, and the seven sets of substrate properties related to tinene characteristics were continuously adjusted to suitable values.

The properties of the substrate and the interactions between these properties were also analyzed.

The analysis results were fed back into the experiment, and the quality of the stanene produced in the experiment became significantly higher.

Ten days passed quickly amidst the busyness.

Zhang Minghao has been working in data analysis, and this continuous work has given him a deeper understanding of experimental data.

At the same time, another issue is also being studied.

Before going to the capital to attend a mathematics conference, he was thinking about how to understand the relationship between bismuth telluride substrates and the growth characteristics of stanene.

That requires analysis from a microscopic perspective, involving calculations of magnetostatics and electron motion, which inevitably leads to the extremely difficult Hubbard conjecture about fermions.

Later, by using "Associative Perception" to find related substrate characteristics, I did not delve further into the theoretical issues.

Now that we have so much data, and all of it is experimental data that promotes stanene growth, we can explore the theoretical relationship between the properties of the substrate and stanene.

However, instead of starting from a microscopic perspective, it is like a semiconductor model, using device characteristics, namely the characteristics of tinene, to deduce the most suitable substrate characteristics.

"The data is relatively small, but we can still do analysis and construct a basic framework."

"With a framework, we can perform substitution calculations."

“Stanene is different from semiconductor devices; it requires higher single-atom thin layers and is influenced by more factors…”

"At this stage of the experiment, the focus of the calculations should be on how to obtain a single-atom-layer tinene thin film!"

"Even if we can't obtain a single-atom-layer tinene, we should at least obtain a stable multi-atom-layer, rather than a bunch of experimental products with single-layer or multi-layer stacks..."

Zhang Minghao began to think carefully.

The stability of the experimental products is very important; only by stably obtaining multilayer tinene thin films can the technology be applied.

Otherwise, it would just be a verification of someone else's theory.

Verifying someone else's theory is also an achievement, but it lacks originality and direct value.

In the end, all I could do was publish a paper.

Thinking about it carefully, it would be better to study pure mathematics!
　Stanene, which I feel might not sound right in English, has been revised for this chapter.

　　(I originally planned to revise the earlier chapters, but after revising a few chapters, I was warned of abnormal operation and was no longer allowed to do so~~~~~~)

　　
　
(End of this chapter)