Chapter 263 The Great God Can't Make Up His Mind

MIT, a materials science laboratory.

Professor Monchi G. Bawandi, who is sitting at his desk, is drinking coffee leisurely while browsing the new articles on Arxiv.

As a big cow in the field of nanochemistry, this boss has been in the limelight recently.

Not long ago, the journal "ACS-Nano" published his research paper on PbS quantum dot thin-film solar cells, which attracted widespread attention from high-tech companies in Silicon Valley.

Although this technology is still a long way from being commercialized and accepted by the industry, its demonstrated potential is already quite "black technology".

Many people commented that the distance between him and the Nobel Prize is only one short of the commercialization of quantum dot technology. When quantum dot technology becomes popular and changes the world, the Nobel Prize will not be far away.

This day may be ten years later, maybe twenty years later, it will not be too far away. The industry has slowly begun to embrace these technologies, which are expected to first be used in displays and ultimately change the face of the semiconductor industry in the future.

But no matter how far away from real commercialization, he already owns four companies with this technology. Other professors may worry about research funding, but he has become a real boss and is doing experiments out of his own pocket.

At this moment, he suddenly received an email from "Nature" in his mailbox.

"Lithium dendrite?"

Looking at the mail on the screen, Professor Bawandi raised his eyebrows with a hint of interest.

Touching his chin, he turned back and shouted to his assistant, "Latis, bring me a sandwich."

"Okay, Professor."

The Latin American woman in a white coat got up and went outside, and soon a sandwich with bacon was delivered.

Professor Bawandi, who was sitting in front of the computer, continued to read the text on the email while enjoying his breakfast.

To be honest, he doesn't believe anyone who claims to have solved the lithium dendrite problem.

Although he doesn't make lithium batteries, someone in his team has studied this area, and he has heard about it.

The most outstanding research and development in this area is probably Sion in the United States and Oxis in the United Kingdom, but I have not heard of any special progress recently. As always, Samsung registered patents crazily, but no one saw them really making big news.

To say that the only "progress" may be that a professor at MIT discovered last year that fixing sulfur in mesoporous carbon materials, combined with a special electrolyte, can effectively inhibit the growth of lithium dendrites.

However, in the end, it turned out that this was just a beautiful misunderstanding. If lithium dendrites were so easy to solve, IBM, which once threatened to use supercomputing to do distribution calculations for the path of each ion, would not withdraw its capital in anger.

Going back to this paper, if this paper was written by someone else, Professor Bawandi might look at it and throw it aside, but the problem is that the contributor to this paper is very interesting. Although he is famous, he is not an electrode An insider in the materials field, but a professor of mathematics at Princeton University.

"Improve the 'gas permeability' of the negative electrode material and inhibit the growth of lithium dendrites through the PDMS material film... This is not a new idea, but the performance on the SEM electron microscope picture is surprising, and it does not seem to be made of P .”

"Computational materials science still has this ability? Unheard of."

In the image, according to the image of the negative electrode material after several charge and discharge cycles, the negative electrode material under the PDMS film did not form the deadly white tree branch, but instead a layer of moss-like folds, and as the charge progresses , superimposed layer by layer.

Then there is the discharge link. Since the surface of the entire negative electrode material is a layer of moss-like folds with relatively gentle undulations in the microscopic state, there is no so-called tip area. Until the end of the discharge, there is no large amount of dead lithium remaining on the electrode. situation.

There is no doubt that these results are absolutely groundbreaking if there is no fraud.

The only fly in the ointment is that those wrinkles will also affect the service life and performance of the battery, but compared to the dendrite stuck on the bottleneck of lithium battery technology, these flaws can be said to be insignificant.

Tapping his index finger on the table, Professor Bawandi thought for a long time.

The paper is a good article, and the data and graphic evidence listed in it can't be faulted, but because the breakthrough is so major, he is now as undecided as the editor of "Nature".

After thinking like this for a long time, suddenly Professor Bawandi's heart moved slightly, and he turned around and shouted.

"Ratis, I will send an experiment report to your mailbox in a while, and you ask Isaac to do it according to that experiment report. Remember to tell him that this is his experiment task for this week."

"Good professor."

Done.

A smile appeared on the corner of Professor Bawandi's mouth.

Isaac is a master student he led, and his research happens to be in the direction of batteries.

The experiment itself is not too difficult, and it can be tested within three days.

Although general reviewers are not responsible for repeated experiments, but in order to satisfy his own curiosity, he decided to find a few master students to do it.

Anyway, he has all the equipment, and the materials don't cost much.

If the lithium dendrite is really solved, then he can be regarded as witnessing history.

...

When "Natural Chemistry" was peer-reviewing the paper, Lu Zhou was not idle.

He called the three masters to his office again, and this time Lu Zhou sent everyone a book list.

There are not many books listed above, only six in total.

However, he asked them to thoroughly understand the contents of these six books within one and a half months, that is, before September.

At that time, he will draw questions from the content of these six books to examine their learning situation.

It's definitely not an easy task for a student who just finished his undergraduate studies, but it's not absolutely impossible. They have dabbled in a lot of content at the undergraduate level, but they didn't go deep into it.

Now what Lu Zhou needs them to do is the process from shallow to deep.

It is impossible to participate in his subject without sweating at all.

It is foreseeable that they will have a very fulfilling summer.

As the task was assigned, a week passed like this. Lu Zhou, who was writing the opening report in the office, suddenly received a call from China.

On the other side of the phone, Xiaotong shouted excitedly.

"Brother, brother! I passed the exam!"

Hearing Xiaotong's excited voice, Lu Zhou smiled slightly.

"congratulations!"

Xiaotong asked pitifully: "Brother, can I ask you something?"

Lu Zhou said generously, "Tell me, what gift do you want? I'll send it to you."

Xiaotong shook her head and said pitifully, "I don't want a gift, I just want to come to Princeton to play with you!"

When he heard that the little guy didn't want a gift, Lu Zhou was stunned.

"...what's so interesting about Princeton."

Except for one Carnegie Lake, there didn't seem to be any particularly charming scenery here, at least in his opinion.

As for the strong academic atmosphere, it is not something ordinary people can feel.

Xiaotong said sullenly: "Staying at home is really boring, I want to go out for a walk."

Lu Zhou thought about it and thought it made sense.

It is rare to have such a relaxing and comfortable vacation, and it is a waste of life to stay at home and play games. It's good to go out for a walk, and it's more reassuring than if she goes out to play alone.

Lu Zhou: "That's all right... Will I know how to apply for a visa?"

Seeing the elder brother let go, Xiao Tong immediately said: "Of course I will, I have already got my passport! I will go to Shanghai to apply for a visa the day after tomorrow!"

It turned out that this little guy had already planned it out.

Lu Zhou smiled and shook his head.

"All right, I bought the ticket for you, you just get on the plane, I'll pick you up here."

Xiaotong's cheers came from the other end of the phone.

"Yeah! Brother is the best! Hee hee, meh~"

"Go away, don't be skinny with me."

After hanging up the phone, Lu Zhou smiled and put the phone on the table.

At this moment, he suddenly remembered something.

Speaking of which, I don't know how Han Mengqi is doing in the exam.

Even though he had stopped working as a part-time tutor for a long time, after all, he was a student brought out by himself, and that job did help him a lot. Lu Zhou still cared a little about her situation.

After the college entrance examination, he never asked about her grades. Now that the admission notice has come down, he wants to know if she has been admitted to his ideal university.

Opened WeChat, Lu Zhou casually sent a message.

[Have you received the admission notice? 】

Very rarely, he waited for a long time without seeing a reply.

Thinking that she probably didn't see it, Lu Zhou put the phone beside him.

I hope she can get into her ideal university.

With a silent blessing in his heart, Lu Zhou put the matter aside for the time being, and continued to get busy with the work at hand.