Scholar’s Advanced Technological System

After Zhou Chengfu’s flight landed, he headed toward the Southwestern Institute of Physics. He didn’t expect to see a particular person there.

And this person was his least favorite…

“… Our stellarator is still being overhauled. We have to borrow your HL-2A machine. I’ve applied to the higher-ups regarding this matter, and the Energy Bureau has approved our request. Director Lu said you guys will fully cooperate with our experiment, so I immediately came over. As for the written documents, they’ll probably arrive tomorrow at the latest,” Lu Zhou said while sitting in Zhou Chengfu’s office. He fiddled with the tea set on the coffee table and said, “This teapot is pretty, where did you buy it?”

Zhou Chengfu stared at Lu Zhou with a blank face and said, “Aren’t you researching the stellarator, why are you here?”

Lu Zhou: “Fast ignition.”

Zhou Chengfu was stunned when he heard this.

“No way! Igniting the experimental reactor, are you insane?”

Lu Zhou didn’t care about Zhou Chengfu’s comments. He only smiled and continued, “I’ve read the relevant papers. The HL-2A can achieve the ignition conditions. I need to test the performance of a new type of material by simulating the internal neutron radiation environment, so I’m asking you guys for help.

“Don’t worry about the money. The tritium resources consumed by the experiment will be provided by us. You only have to cooperate with our experiment.”

After hearing Lu Zhou’s request, Zhou Chengfu nearly vomited in his face.

What do you mean you’re going to provide us with the money?

Do you think you can just buy us with money?

Not to mention, money was a trigger for Zhou Chengfu.

Especially when he heard that Director Lu said they would “fully cooperate”, this made him furious. He was the one that decided to research fusion energy first, but now he was being treated as a b*tch.

“If you really f*cking want to do neutron radiation experiments, why don’t you go to Daya Bay?”

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, “Both Dongguan and Daya Bay can’t reach our neutron requirements.”

Right now the newest international controllable fusion research plan was to build a neutron source device based on the D-Li interaction, to simulate a neutron radiation environment, which was present inside the fusion reactor. However, up until now, this device had remained in a concept stage. Only the Americans were doing research on this thing, and they were probably the only ones that knew their research progress.

“What about Science Island?” Zhou Chengfu was frustrated; he didn’t want to give up. He quickly said, “The EAST machine in Science Island can do it, why don’t you…”

“I need to use yours.”

One sentence from Lu Zhou blocked Zhou Chengfu’s entire argument.

Lu Zhou put down the teapot in his hand and stood up from the sofa.

Zhou Chengfu looked so uncomfortable; it was like he just ate a bug. Lu Zhou smiled and spoke in a relaxed manner.

“Anyway, I’ve probably already offended you in the past, so I’ll just offend you one more time today.”

Zhou Chengfu’s face looked gloomy as he said quietly, “You have to think clearly. If our HL-2A is destroyed by you guys, and you’re not able to create the demonstration reactor…”

Lu Zhou’s facial expression didn’t change as he replied, “You don’t have to worry about that, that’s my responsibility.”

Zhou Chengfu snorted.

He stood up from his office chair and walked out of his office without saying anything.

Lu Zhou looked at this old man leaving and stopped smiling.

Maybe there was a more euphemistic approach he could have taken, but he was in a hurry.

Therefore, he could only apologize.

…

Including the University of Science and Technology of China’s inertial confinement fusion machine, there were 16 controllable nuclear fusion experiment machines in China.

However, there were only a few machines that could reach hundreds of millions of degrees in their reaction chamber, which was the temperature at which deuterium-tritium fusion occurred.

HL-2A was one of them, which was obviously the accumulation of countless researchers’ blood, sweat, and tears.

Zhou Chengfu looked at the equipment maintenance technician, who was on the verge of tears. Without asking, Zhou Chengfu knew that his machine was ruined.

He looked at Lu Zhou angrily; his blood was boiling.

He couldn’t help but want to melt this kid by throwing him into the tokamak machine. However, the experiment was over. At the very least, he knew this wasn’t done for nothing.

Zhou Chengfu stared deadly at Lu Zhou.

“What’s the result?!”

Lu Zhou ignored the resentment in his tone and stared at the scanning electron microscope images, and finally, he sighed.

“It doesn’t look good.”

This time he brought around 20 samples; all of them were mounted to the first wall of the tokamak.

These images were obtained after the experimental reactor shut down and cooled. Workers in chemical protective suits entered the reaction chamber and collected these materials for special laboratory testing.

Looking at these data alone, the performance of these materials in the reactor chamber didn’t look good.

However, Lu Zhou never expected the first experiment to be successful since every research experiment was done by trial and error.

Blood nearly came out of Zhou Chengfu’s nose.

What do you mean it’s not looking good?

Are you going to do another experiment later on?

Lu Zhou rubbed his chin and stared carefully at the images. He said, “The neutron radiation from the fusion reactor environment is too strong. Even though the silicon carbide and porous aerogel material have good neutron-transmission properties, the neutron beam still penetrated the material, which formed several Frenkel defects inside the material.”

Zhou Chengfu: “What the hell is that?”

Surprised, Lu Zhou paused for a second and looked at him.

“Frenkel defect? The defect forms when an atom or smaller ion leaves its place in the lattice, creating a vacancy, and becomes an interstitial by lodging in a nearby location… It’s a very basic crystallography concept.”

Zhou Chengfu’s face was as red as a tomato. He nearly wanted to curse at Lu Zhuo.

However, he suddenly realized that this kid was a Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner. Anything he could say would embarrass himself even further, so he decided to shut his mouth and whispered quietly, “I’m in nuclear physics and plasma physics, not materials…”

After all, there weren’t a lot of people that were a master of everything.

Zhou Chengfu was the manager of the entire project, so he might know a bit more about various different fields. However, his understanding obviously wasn’t in-depth enough.

Not to mention, the HL-2A reactor didn’t use this type of material. He had only ever heard about ceramic-based composite materials used on reactors.

“Like this thing here and there.” Lu Zhou didn’t care if Zhou Chengfu understood or not. He pointed at the images and said, “Can you see these white dots? Looking at it with the infrared detection data, one can deduce that the vacancies are left by the displacement of hydrogen atoms. This indicates that this material doesn’t have good anti-neutron properties; the neutrons are trapped inside the material.”

Zhou Chengfu understood this part, and he asked, “So what’s the use of this stuff?”

“That would depend on who is using it.”

Lu Zhou stored the data on a mobile hard drive. Without looking at Zhou Chengfu, he said relaxingly, “Don’t forget, I was the one that invented the computational materials field.”