"To be honest, when I first saw it, I couldn't believe that the particle accelerator you wanted to build looked like this."
Standing in front of this newly built particle accelerator, Li Gang couldn't help but marvel at it.
Although this particle accelerator cost nearly 5 billion to build, it was actually mainly because Lin Xiao wanted to speed up its overall construction. Because the overall project volume was relatively large, the only way to build it faster was to add more money.
As for why the amount of work is relatively large, it is because this particle accelerator, compared to ordinary particle accelerators, is composed of multiple pipelines, and the construction of multiple pipelines obviously requires a larger workload.
There are also reasons why multiple pipelines are used.
When the multi-pipeline accelerator is started, a powerful electromagnetic field will be generated in these pipes every time, and then the electromagnetic field will accelerate the charged particles in all the pipes, and finally bombard them in a large sphere-like space at the end.
The space of this sphere is naturally used to place the target material. According to Lin Xiao's design, the target material is placed inside, and then it is bombarded by a large number of particles. The microscopic particle shape inside it can stably move toward the electric field. Comorphic transformation.
In this way, through this particle accelerator, they can mass-produce the inner wall materials required for controllable nuclear fusion.
Therefore, it is precisely because of this that Li Gang has no doubts about Lin Xiao's construction of this particle accelerator. After all, his doubts are mainly about the production capacity.
If there is only one pipe, mass production is impossible no matter how you think about it, but if so many pipes are combined, then there will be no problem.
According to estimates, this multi-channel particle accelerator can produce about fifty inner wall panels every time it is started, which can meet about one-twentieth of the current conch-type nuclear fusion device designed by Lin Xiao. In other words, it only needs Run it twenty times to meet their needs.
This thing can be used about five times a month, which is equivalent to four months of production capacity, which can meet their needs for one device.
This kind of production capacity is sufficient for nuclear fusion and is worthy of the 5 billion cost of this particle accelerator.
Lin Xiao said with a smile: "If you want to accomplish some special purposes, you must do some special things. If you think this is special, then that's fine."
Li Gang shook his head and said: "You are using accelerators to prepare new materials. This was an idea in science fiction before, but you have now realized it."
Lin Xiao laughed: "That's not to say, my accelerator can't do that. The accelerator would need more energy, and it would have to be accurate enough."
"My accelerator is not a particle-level tweezer. Is it possible that if I put a ton of mercury in it and start the accelerator, I can remove a proton and an electron from each of these mercury atoms?"
Hearing what Lin Xiao said, Li Gang was stunned for a moment, and then he realized that if a proton and a neutron were removed from a mercury atom, it would become a gold atom.
He couldn't help but laugh and shook his head, saying: "It's not that what you said is obviously even more outrageous!"
Lin Xiao smiled and said: "That's right. My particle accelerator is not yet capable of this level. What we do is science, not science fiction."
"Well..." Li Gang nodded, then thought again, and finally asked hesitantly: "But I still have a question, is this thing really possible? Although your particle accelerator can achieve mass production, but
The magnetic fields of multiple accelerating tubes will also interfere with each other, and you have not used the magnetic mirror effect, nor have you used any method to shield the interference of the electromagnetic field. In this case, the force exerted by the electromagnetic field on the particles will not be weakened.
Well?"
"The electric-strength co-state tungsten plates you mentioned before are all formed by neutron bombardment during nuclear fusion. I have also calculated before that neutrons in nuclear fusion carry 14.1MeV energy, but you
In this particle accelerator, if there is no other weakening of the magnetic field, the particles in a single pipe can still be accelerated to such a high energy. But with so many pipes, I am afraid that it can only reach one-tenth of the original energy at most, right? Is this really true?
OK?"
Just as Li finished speaking his question, Song Tao came over and said to Lin Xiao: "Mr. Lin, the people from the Institute of High Energy you found said that all the inspections have been completed and it can be started now. In addition,
Those tungsten plates are also ready."
Lin Xiao nodded towards Song Tao, "Okay, I understand, let's start it now."
"OK."
Song Tao nodded and went to find the people from the Institute of High Energy over there to discuss the next startup steps.
Those people from the Institute of High Energy were naturally invited by Lin Xiao. After all, it is a particle accelerator. It would be better to find more professionals. Moreover, he has helped the Institute of High Energy so much, so it is appropriate to invite them to help.
After seeing Song Tao leave, Lin Xiao turned his head and looked at Li Gang next to him again, and then said with a smile: "Anyway, the answer will be revealed later, so I won't explain it to you anymore. Let's just see the results then."
alright."
"That's...okay."
Li Gang obviously wanted to understand the process more than seeing the results directly, but when he saw Lin Xiao walking away, he could only give up and continue questioning, and then followed Lin Xiao to the main control room.
The main control room is the main control room of this particle accelerator, but it only has a control function. It is not like other particle accelerators and can also conduct scientific research.
After all, their particle accelerator does not have any detectors installed on it. It is completely unable to detect images of various energies and particle displacements generated after particle collisions like other particle colliders.
The only thing it can detect is the area coverage of the target material bombarded by the bombardment of accelerated particles. When this coverage reaches more than 99%, it can be regarded as the end of this "metamorphosis"
——Metamorphosis naturally means that the target material has transformed into an electric intensity co-state.
At this time, the particle accelerator must be turned off, and after a period of cooling, the target materials inside can be removed.
Although it was the first time for those present to operate this process, the procedures were all handled by computers, so basically there was nothing to worry about.
"Start now. One hundred 10MWh superconducting energy storage coils have been connected, the current has been passed, and the electromagnetic field intensity has reached the predetermined peak!"
"Put in accelerating particles!"
"Already invested! The current dosage input speed is one mole per second for a single pipe!"
As all the staff performed their respective tasks in an orderly manner, the particle accelerator was finally started.
As charged particles are put into each pipe, these charged particles rush out quickly under the action of the accelerating magnetic field, rushing towards the end point along the pipe.
The entire accelerator is linear, with a total length of five kilometers. Although it is not as long as CEPC's 70 kilometers, as a linear accelerator, five kilometers is still relatively long.
Of course, it is precisely because it is linear that it can be built within four months. After all, compared to a circular shape, the difficulty of constructing a linear shape is obviously much lower.
So in this way, the particles become faster and faster in the acceleration pipeline, until finally, at the end point, the energy carried by these particles reaches more than 1 MeV, and then bombards the target material at the end point.
As for the target material they chose, it was still a tungsten plate, because in Lin Xiao's calculations, tungsten was the most suitable element.
"Multiple high-energy reactions were detected in the bombardment chamber! The bombardment has begun! The current bombardment coverage is 0.1%!"
A staff member's voice sounded, and everyone invariably cast their eyes on a large screen in the main control room, where the coverage of the bombardment was displayed, which was rising rapidly from 0.1%.
Of course, it climbs quickly at the beginning. When the number reaches 50%, it starts to slow down. Because the bombardment range of particles will be repeated, the coverage will increase at the final speed.
It will become slower and slower.
But everyone just waited slowly. Although this process seemed a bit boring, when the coverage reached more than 90%, the numbers after the decimal point had become quite slow due to the rising speed, so every time it rose by one point
, they all want to cheer for it, this kind of people often have unique fun, which can be regarded as allowing them to temporarily relieve their boredom.
Just like that, five hours passed. Finally, as the number rose from 98.9% to 99%, everyone in the control room once again burst into cheers and then clapped.
Lin Xiao also had a smile on his face. They had been waiting for this last point for more than ten minutes, and now it was finally over. And since it had reached 99%, there was no need to wait any longer.
Then he said: "Okay, now turn off the accelerator, and after the cooling is complete, take out all the target materials."
"yes!"
The staff present responded in unison, and then immediately started to turn off the accelerator.
At this time, Lin Xiao said to Song Tao: "In addition, Song Tao, contact the Mianshi Nuclear Physics and Chemistry Laboratory. We are going to use their neutron irradiation laboratory again."
"Okay! I'll get in touch now!" Song Tao responded immediately. It could be seen that he was a little excited. After all, the next irradiation test was the time to witness a miracle.
Of course, it may also be witnessing defeat.
Witness Lin Xiao’s defeat.
Will Lin Xiao, who has never failed before, continue to succeed this time?
Of course, for Song Tao, he still hopes to succeed this time. Otherwise, the people at the Southern Institute of Physics may have been ready to go.
…
A week passed in the blink of an eye.
Lin Xiao and the others also appeared again in the neutron irradiation laboratory of the Mianshi Institute of Nuclear Physics and Chemistry.
"Irradiation begins! The neutron source begins to emit neutrons!"
The staff were working, while Lin Xiao stood with Zhang Ran, director of the Institute of Nuclear Physics and Chemistry.
Zhang Ran had not forgotten the last experiment at all, so although Lin Xiao did not tell him, he still knew what Lin Xiao was studying.
"Are you confident about coming this time?"
Zhang Ran asked with a smile.
"Well...if my math is okay, I should be confident." Lin Xiao said.
"Haha, then it seems there is no problem."
Zhang Ran smiled and said, "Academician Lin has vouched for his mathematics, so there must be no problem."
Lin Xiao smiled and shook his head. He didn't say anything more, but quietly waited for the final result to appear.
Of course, he was quite confident about Zhang Ran's words.
Time passed quickly, and this time, they still irradiated for an hour first.
An hour later, the researchers took out the experimental samples and control samples and began to detect the DPA values of these things.
Soon, the test results came out.
One of the testers exclaimed in a very shocked tone: "How is it possible?! The DPA value is actually...0?!"
The tester obviously couldn't help shouting these words. The sound was so loud that everyone in the laboratory heard it.
After the laboratory fell into silence for a while, a burst of exclamation suddenly broke out.
"How is it possible? How can the DPA value be 0?"
"Oh my God, is this fake? This makes no sense!"
The DPA value is 0, which means that this new tungsten plate did not have any atomic dislocation in this irradiation test!
In other words, the impact of neutrons did not change the internal microstructure of these tungsten plates at all!
Of course, it is also possible that the change is too small for their detection equipment to detect.
But even if the change cannot be detected because it is too small, it also shows that this new type of tungsten plate is still unreasonably powerful.
This was something that none of them would have dared to imagine before. After all, no matter what material it is, it is simply impossible to achieve this level when faced with neutron bombardment!