Chapter 1552: Two-Front Advance

Lianhai Institute of Chemical Physics, Synthesis Laboratory.

Wang Lingxiao stared at the vacuum reaction chamber, and at the same time, he carefully moved the joystick with his right thumb, allowing the near-infrared polarized laser of a specific wavelength to accurately irradiate the suspended carbon nanotube film.

Originally, this process required the use of a very inhumane rod-type operator, and the synthesis progress was stuck at around 40% for a long time due to operational reasons.

It was not until I switched to a game controller at Chang Haonan's suggestion that the effect was immediate.

As the film gradually fluctuates and shrinks under the precisely controlled temperature gradient, the pre-adsorbed cobalt metal phthalocyanine precursor molecules begin to fluctuate and shrink under the drive of the light field. After a series of complex interface interactions, they finally appear on the carrier surface in the form of powder…

"Deposition complete!"

Another graduate student nearby reported.

Wang Lingxiao nodded and then pressed the trigger on the left side of the handle.

The chamber was opened, and a piece of carbon nanotube film evenly covered with blue-black substance was carefully taken out and placed on the electronic balance.

"The product of this synthesis is 5.176 grams!"

Because of fatigue and thirst, Wang Lingxiao's voice sounded a little sharp.

But you can still hear the excitement.

The fact that such a macroscopic amount of sample could be obtained on the first completely successful attempt suggests that the process scalability of the film shrinkage method appears to be very good.

"The process route has been initially verified to be effective." Academician Zhang Tao stood by with his arms folded, leaned over to carefully examine the sample, and nodded, "Prepare the electrode sheet immediately and conduct basic electrochemical performance tests."

Their laboratory was not specialized in lithium battery research in the past, but fortunately the work on electrode preparation was applicable, and they also had support from the neighboring research group.

In a glove box filled with argon, coating, drying and packaging are completed in one go.

However, when the first batch of charging and discharging data appeared on the screen, the temperature in the laboratory seemed to drop sharply.

Initial capacity, rate performance, cycle stability curve... Compared with ordinary cobalt single-atom catalysts prepared by traditional methods, the improvement in various key indicators is negligible, and even the performance is more unstable in some high-pressure sections, far from the leap forward predicted by theoretical simulation.

Wang Lingxiao stared at the almost overlapping curves, his tone frustrated: "The laser parameters, temperature window, and precursor concentration are all strictly implemented according to the plan optimized by Academician Chang... Why is there no improvement in the macro performance?"

He looked at Zhang Tao.

"The process itself is successful. At least it proves that we can realize the technical route of laser-induced thin film shrinkage self-assembly on a macro scale, and the yield is up to standard. The problem is likely to be in the microscopic quality of the product..." The latter's face remained calm, and he just picked up a sample and observed it under strong light. "The ordered array we thought was formed may not have been effectively formed, or there are serious defects in the structure."

After a brief pause, he gave another decisive instruction: "Immediately take the most representative samples and have them sent to Researcher Sun!"

……

That evening, the samples were delivered to Sun Fei's team via human courier.

The "stitched monster" instrument, which was made of imported TEM and APT equipment and had undergone destructive transformation, sacrificing in-situ synchronization and some accuracy, and was designed specifically for stable materials, was running at full capacity. After several hours, it finally gave preliminary three-dimensional imaging results and transmitted them back to Lian Hai as soon as possible.

Wang Lingxiao looked at the superposition results of the APT three-dimensional point cloud map and the TEM structural image on the screen, and his heart sank to the bottom.

The imagined continuous and orderly cobalt atomic chain is hard to find. More than 95% of the observed areas show that the anchored cobalt atoms are isolated points or extremely short, discontinuous fragmented "chains", with an average length of less than one-tenth of the theoretical design value, and an alarmingly high breakage rate.

"The atomic chain breakage rate is over 95%..." Wang Lingxiao scratched his hair that looked like a chicken coop and complained, "This is not an ordered array at all, it's atomic fragments..."

Obviously, the result was just as Zhang Tao had guessed.

The so-called "array" is a misnomer.

In the following days, under the leadership of Zhang Tao, the entire laboratory ran like a precision instrument and was debugged repeatedly.

Fine-tuning the laser power density, optimizing the pulse frequency, changing the substrate pretreatment scheme, fine-tuning the precursor molecular structure... after each adjustment, the sample was synthesized with hope.

However, the results were disappointing.

The improvement of macroscopic performance has never been able to break through the bottleneck, and the breakage rate has also remained high, hovering above 90%, and slightly longer chain segments can only be observed in very few local areas.

In desperation, the research team had to rewind the progress and compare the analysis report sent back by Yangcheng, the equipment work log during the synthesis process, and the idealized synthesis route provided by Chang Haonan one by one.

“Could it be that there is a problem with the laser intervention route?”

During this period of time, Wang Lingxiao has learned a lot about Chang Haonan's glorious history.

But after all, it was just hearsay, so in his opinion, there is always a possibility that the other party made a mistake.

Zhang Tao waved his hand hesitantly, but his eyes did not move away from the data file in front of him: "We have also looked at the calculation process. It is possible that there are inaccurate data or some defects, but the entire technical route is wrong..."

At this moment, his eyes suddenly froze.

The words "unlikely" were stuck in his throat.

The screen is now displaying the log file of the laser intervention process.

Wang Lingxiao followed his mentor's gaze and soon noticed a series of tiny fluctuations that shouldn't have existed.

"The interface energy barrier is out of control..." Zhang Tao finally identified the crux of the problem. "The surface of carbon nanotubes is not ideally smooth. During the dynamic process of film shrinkage and laser induction, these inhomogeneities lead to huge differences in the interface interaction forces in local areas, forming an energy barrier that is difficult to predict and fluctuates violently..."

He directly reached out and tapped the LCD screen, pointing to the area on the image where the energy fluctuated violently. "When the cobalt atoms tried to line up, they were constantly blocked by these microscopic energy barriers and could not form long-range order. In this complex dynamic environment, the fine-tuning of the laser parameters was severely weakened and global stability could not be achieved..."

"..."

Obviously, the direction given by Chang Haonan is correct, but the details need to be further improved.

……

Meanwhile, in Seoul.

FEI Korea branch.

Patrick Mahachi pushed open the door to Janil Alcade's office.

"Jenier, Candlelight Technology has suddenly unilaterally suspended all negotiations." He handed a folder to the other party with a worried look on his face. "The official written statement from the other party is that we need to concentrate resources to prioritize solving the current intellectual property legal risks and completely eliminate all potential obstacles to cooperation..."

Hearing this, Alkad smiled as if he was in control of the situation.

"Isn't this great?" He took the folder and glanced through it. "It means that the pressure is starting to take effect. The quagmire of patent litigation is consuming their energy and confidence, forcing the other party to retreat temporarily... This is the key to our plan."

"I still feel uneasy. This is more like a strategic silence... Moreover, delaying is likely to bring variables." Mahachi was not infected and shook his head. "Perhaps... we should release a little flexibility in the negotiation conditions? For example, make a slight concession on the proportion of patent licensing fees to stabilize the negotiation table first?"

Compared with China, he is more worried about those "allies" who are seemingly on good terms with him but actually at odds with him.

Although they had temporarily formed an offensive and defensive alliance, in the final analysis, they were rivals ready to fight to the death.

Alkad knew what the other party was worried about, but he still shook his head decisively.

"Look at our intelligence." He quickly pulled up an internal report from his computer: "Hitachi and JEOL both complained that the other party's conditions were too high and unacceptable, and the negotiations made no progress, while Thermo Fisher has not even had a chance for substantive dialogue... In short, at least before the Chinese decide to compromise, we don't have to worry about being beaten to the punch by others."

Then, he turned to Mahachi and said, "Besides, it's only been a month... there's still more than half of the three-month window given by Kania. If we show weakness now, won't all our previous efforts go to waste?"

This explanation was quite methodical and finally convinced Mahachi.

Although very reluctantly.

"Okay." Mahachi nodded. "What's the next plan? My negotiation team has nothing to do right now, but it's not easy to withdraw from China either."

"Advance on two fronts and seize the opportunity to win!" Alkad's eyes were sharp. "On the one hand, file additional lawsuits in more important cities with jurisdiction to expand the case base and further consume the opponent's resources and energy. On the other hand, coordinate several influential media to publish articles to exert pressure from the social level!"