Chapter 70
During this period, Ji Zhixing mainly did three things: read literature like crazy, study systematic courses whenever he had a spare moment, and actively observe experiments.
Oh, and there are also classes twice a week to discuss papers.
Thanks to excellent resources, outstanding channels, and an excellent environment, Ji Zhixing made rapid progress in the field of quantum physics, and he was completely different from when he first came to Beijing. He also began to take on the tasks of the "telekinesis" project team.
The term "remote object retrieval" sounds very unserious, unscientific, and like scientific research fraud. Yenching University leaders repeatedly asked Gao Xiao to change to a more serious name, but Gao Xiao ignored them and insisted on hanging the four words "remote object retrieval" outside the laboratory and writing them on the project funding application.
"Back then, the leaders even tried to cut off the teacher's funding, forcing him to compromise and change his name," Deng Zhi told Ji Zhixing. "Guess what our teacher did?"
Ji Zhixing guessed: "Argue with reason?"
He knew that Professor Gao Xiao had always had some complaints about the school's leadership, and that the school's nitpicking over such trivial matters was indeed a bit petty. Given Professor Gao Xiao's unrestrained nature, it was impossible for him to do as the leadership wished. Moreover, the sign outside the lab that read "Remote Object Retrieval Project Team" showed that Professor Gao Xiao had won the argument.
“The teachers couldn’t be bothered to argue with them!” Deng said with great enthusiasm. “He threw the rectification notice in the principal’s face, then applied for 200 million yuan in research funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and signed an agreement with a company to secure 150 million yuan in sponsorship.”
"Wow!" Ji Zhixing exclaimed from the bottom of his heart.
He recalled Fan Chuanshuo's project, "Research on the Physics of Novel Ferroelectric Materials and Magnetoelectric Coupling," which had only received a total of 9 million yuan in funding from two separate applications. Was this the difference in capabilities?
“Impressive, isn’t it!” Deng continued, “Later, Director Cai from the Finance Department came to the teacher and said that the school had actually agreed to allocate the funds a long time ago, but the allocation was delayed because the Finance Department’s work reports were not prepared.”
Ji Zhixing laughed; even he could see that Director Cai was just a scapegoat: "Did the professor accept this funding?"
"Of course! Why not take advantage of a free lunch!" Deng Lili laughed. "To paraphrase the teacher, it's like 'everyone can get a piece of the wool!'"
Indeed, only absolute strength can earn sufficient respect. Ji Zhixing thought that because the "telekinesis" project had great application value, the school was trying to get involved in a roundabout way to save face.
The essence of the "telekinesis" project is to use photonics technology for quantum manipulation.
"Photophotography" is an invention of scientist Arthur Ashkin, who won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics.
So-called optical tweezers utilize the mechanical effects of light, allowing light rays to grasp objects like tweezers. However, because the power of light is so small that it can only be measured on the order of piconewtons (PN) and femtonews (FN), it can only manipulate things at the molecular scale.
In addition, traditional optical tweezers have many limitations, such as difficulty in capturing particles close to or smaller than the wavelength of light, inability to capture opaque objects, the need for high-NA objectives, and complex optical path setups.
Professor Gao Xiao's project aims to address these limitations, simplify the application conditions of optical photography, and expand the scope of its applications.
If photophotography can overcome traditional limitations, then at the microscopic level, through flexible micromanipulation, viruses, bacteria, or cancer cells in the human body can be captured sterilely and non-invasively, achieving the effect of treating and saving lives at the nanoscale.
From a macro perspective, its application scope is even wider.
For example, in the Avengers, when Thanos's team, Deadwood, first attacked Earth, they captured Doctor Strange by shooting a beam of light directly from their spaceship. This was the light tweezers.
Realistically speaking, if optical imaging technology were mature enough, firefighters wouldn't have to risk their lives rushing into fires to save people, and border soldiers wouldn't have to risk their lives to enter "death zones" to clear mines and defuse explosives.
Of course, upgrading light-sensing technology is not an easy task, but under the leadership of Professor Gao Xiao, the 18 members of the project team are ambitious to break through traditional limitations.
Ji Zhixing also felt that this project had great potential.
The project team had a clear division of labor, consisting of several research groups. Professor Gao Xiao assigned him to the group led by Deng Yi, Ye Shi, and Liang Zi, responsible for solving the problem of the thermal effects of photogrammetry.
Traditional optical imaging techniques rely on highly focused light beams. When controlled particles are captured by optical tweezers, the light intensity generated at the focal point (the center of the beam) can cause thermal damage to the particles. Furthermore, the light intensity is directly proportional to the volume of the captured particle.
If this problem is not solved, then if photodetector technology is used to capture cancer cells, it may burn other healthy cells in the light path; if it is applied to rescuing people in a fire, the trapped people will have already been vaporized by the ultra-high temperature of the laser before they are transferred to a safe area by photodetector; if it is applied to a minefield, it may directly detonate landmines lurking underground.
Therefore, the task of Ji Zhixing, Deng Yi, Ye Shi, and Liang Zi was to develop low-temperature optical tweezers technology.
"Damn it! Failed again." Deng Yi took off his gloves and threw them away angrily, his face scrunched up, and slumped into a chair in a relaxed pose.
Ye Shi and Liang Zi could not hide their disappointment.
Ji Zhixing had just joined the research group and, unlike them, had experienced countless failures, so he wasn't as discouraged. He recorded the data on the composite structure of quantum eddies and particle swarms that he had just observed on Matlab software and processed the images using ChemDraw.
The raw data obtained from experiments is often only understandable to the person who conducted the experiment. However, if it is not processed and analyzed in a timely manner, it may become incomprehensible over time. Although the experiment we just discussed was a failure, it is still necessary to record it because the raw data is crucial for periodic review, analysis, and summarization. On the other hand, it may also be the beginning of a major discovery.
Seeing Ji Zhixing so busy, Deng Yi felt embarrassed to continue lounging around and took over the image analysis task. Ye Shi also started processing the materials, while Liang Zi cleaned the instruments.
"This is absolutely devastating!" Deng said while drawing the diagram. "Can't we just introduce cooling technology to achieve low environmental temperatures? Didn't the Chinese Academy of Sciences just develop superfluid helium at -271°C last year?"
Ye Shi retorted, "Frozen to death is probably a little better than burned to death."
Ji Zhixing also felt this was not feasible. Introducing a low-temperature environment would require matching the photothermal effect, but the photothermal effect is not a fixed number, making this method too limiting. To fundamentally solve the problem, they had to start with the light beam itself.
However, he was inspired by Deng's words: "What about laser cooling?"
"Laser cooling?" Ye Shi was a little puzzled. "Isn't that used to measure various atomic parameters?"
Deng Yi's eyes lit up: "That seems feasible! Isn't the measurement principle simply using laser interference to slow down and cool down atomic motion?"
“That’s right!” Ji Zhixing had an idea immediately. “We use a pair of laser beams to measure atomic parameters. We can try using a three-dimensional laser beam to see if we can form a magneto-optical trap.”
“I think it’s feasible too!” Liang Zi added excitedly. “We can also try other laser cooling methods, such as CPT cooling and Raman cooling.”
The four of them were excited to find a new approach, but the experiment couldn't be done on a whim. They had to design an experimental plan first, taking into account various conditions, variables, and materials.
However, it was already time to leave work, so the four of them started tidying up the lab, planning to continue their work tomorrow.
Professor Gao Xiao always requires his students to be punctual for work and to leave on time, so they can go home and rest properly. He believes that their brains need to cool down before they can continue to burn. The 996 or 007 work schedules simply do not exist here.
"That's the same as our Professor Yan," Ji Zhixing said casually while they were eating in the cafeteria.
Deng quickly picked up the soup bowl and took a swig, letting the rice in his mouth mix with the soup as he swallowed. He then asked, "Do you know why?"
"Uh... because of insufficient rest time, it's easy to get distracted during experiments, which can easily lead to accidents," Ji Zhixing said, but judging from Deng Yi's gossipy expression, there might be more to the story.
Deng smiled, his eyes narrowing: "Let me tell you, these are all lessons learned!"
The supervisor has talked about this with them many times. Every time he finds someone staying up all night to do an experiment, he brings up this story again.
"It happened when the teacher was a student. Back then, the rules and regulations in the lab were definitely not as comprehensive as they are now. It seems that their supervisor was also rather irresponsible, so it was quite chaotic. At that time, their lab built a reactor. Do you know how much pressure it was? 80 MPa!"
"That's so exaggerated!" Ji Zhixing almost choked on his soup.
The old-fashioned, black popcorn machines that looked like cannons made a deafening "bang" and only produced 0.6 MPa. Of course, military factories did have 350 MPa machines, but that level was generally not used in university labs. Nowadays, the reactors commonly used in labs are usually only 25.5 MPa.
"At the time, it was said that Professor Yan insisted on adding a safety valve and explosion-proof plate, but their supervisor refused to spend any more money on this part, so they just made do with what they had. And sure enough, an accident happened later."
"One night, our teacher stayed up all night watching over the reactor to keep it at a constant temperature. Because he had been working two or three nights in a row, he was so tired that he fell asleep in the lab. He didn't even realize that the thermocouple for the reactor's temperature had broken, and then it started heating up automatically."
"The teacher said he later estimated that the internal pressure was at least 250 MPa. Anyway, it eventually exploded, directly penetrating the ceiling of two floors and tearing a hole in the raw material tank storing tert-butyllithium downstairs!"
Ji Zhixing's eyes widened. Tert-butyllithium! It's said to be highly flammable, even spontaneously combusting when exposed to water or air, and once it starts burning, it's difficult to extinguish, and can even break into small fireballs that float around in the air.
"Anyway, the whole building caught fire very quickly. The teacher was trapped on the fourth floor. He was so startled that he couldn't process what was happening and was quickly knocked unconscious by the smoke in the stairwell. He was supposed to die, but Professor Yan heard the noise in his dormitory, realized something was wrong, ran to the laboratory building, braved the fire, and carried him out."
"So that's what happened." Ji Zhixing thought back for a moment, and it seemed that Professor Yan did indeed have some old burn scars on his arm.
He then understood why the two professors attached such importance to laboratory safety regulations, including rest time; those were lessons learned with their lives!
After a good night's rest, the four members of the "Low Temperature Optical Tweezers" research group designed a plan together the next day and began to experiment with introducing laser cooling technology into optical tweezers.
but……
Three-dimensional laser beam, failed!
CPT cooling failed!
Raman cooling failed!
Over the course of a month, they tried every possible method of laser cooling, all to no avail! The "low-temperature optical tweezers" research group was at a standstill, and all four of them were at a loss.
At that moment, Professor Gao Xiao appeared with an invitation to an academic conference.
He always had the students take turns participating in these activities, and this time it was Deng Yi and others' turn.
"The four of you can go together," Gao Xiao said.
Liang Zi asked, "Teacher, is there anything I should be careful about?"
"It's nothing." Gao Xiao waved his hand casually, this meeting was just a show of force. "However, since you asked, I'll give you a few pointers."
The four men pretended to listen attentively.
"First, listen more, observe more, and speak less, so as not to expose your academic level. And if you do expose it, whatever you do, don't reveal my name!"
"Second, even if you don't understand, you should frequently nod your head, sometimes frown as if you are thinking, and if you hear others laughing, you should also laugh a few times to show that you understand."
"Third, don't just focus on the all-you-can-eat tea break; it's a snack, not a main meal! However, if no one's looking, you can try to slip a banana into your pocket."
Ji Zhixing: ...
A note from the author:
The description of optical tweezers technology in this chapter is based on the book "Optics and Photonics Series: Optical Tweezers Technology".
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
