Chapter 312 - 279: Hello, Master (2)
"...Huh?"
"Why the sudden change in approach?"
"Doesn’t that mean all our previous work on the wiring diagrams and basis function phase calibration was for nothing?"
"The lock-in amplifier’s parameters were all tuned for the inversion path, too. Are we scrapping all of it?"
The only one who didn’t speak was Zhang Yan. He just glanced at Li Dong, then at Lu Mingyuan.
Lu Mingyuan was actually the first person in the project team to reject the physical path.
A few months ago, he’d written an internal memo.
"The origin of the physical path is a blank slate. It’s not feasible."
He had read the original draft of that memo.
Today, Old Lu was standing here, holding Li Dong’s physical path proposal.
’He’s the first one to change his mind.’
Lu Mingyuan’s voice rang out again.
"Everyone, quiet down."
"Let’s divide up the work."
"Cheng Duo, you and Su Yanqing, redo the lock-in amplifier’s phase calibration according to the polarization conditions of the physical path."
"Lu Heng, you create the standard for the sample’s oxidation state scan and cross-reference it with the DFT group."
"Shen Ying, Guo Han, the two of you work together. Parameterize the distance scan on the LT-STM and pull a complete set of decay curves based on Li Dong’s three-segment kappa model."
"Zhang Yan, implement that three-layer model from paper into this data stream."
When he finished, he put the papers down.
"The data. I want it accurate to the third decimal place."
"Move out."
With a rush of movement, everyone dispersed.
Lu Mingyuan turned his head and looked at Li Dong.
"Li Dong."
"You go and follow up with each group."
"If any group’s results don’t line up, give them a heads-up immediately."
Li Dong nodded.
"Okay, Teacher Lu."
「The next few days.」
The lights in the laboratory on the second basement level of the North Chemical Building were almost never turned off.
Li Dong made the rounds inside.
If a group’s initial DFT values were input incorrectly, he’d go over, take a look, and point out the specific parameter line in their script.
If a group’s distance scan was halfway through and they found the tail wasn’t separating into three segments, he’d go over, take a look, and tell them to switch the feedback loop to manual.
He hardly did any hands-on work himself, but whenever a group got stuck, they would come find him.
Lu Mingyuan also spent the entire time in the lab these past few days.
There was a cot set up in the office. When he got tired, he would nap on it for a bit, and as soon as he woke up, he’d return to the main console to look at the data.
He had led countless groups in his lifetime.
But the last time he had sat at the main console staring at a single set of data with this level of intensity was in the early nineties, back when he was a postdoc himself.
That time, he was overseeing his own advisor’s final experiment.
’This time, he was overseeing...’
「On the evening of the third day.」
All the groups had finished running their data.
Wu Kai and Lu Mingyuan sat in the office.
A stack of printouts was spread across the table.
The DFT group, the XPS group, the LT-STM group, the lock-in amplifier phase calibration group.
𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢
The data from every single group fell squarely within the outline Li Dong had laid out on the USB drive three days prior.
A perfect match.
Wu Kai and Lu Mingyuan stared at the pile of data on the table, speechless for a long time.
Li Dong sat in the chair opposite them.
The two men exchanged a look.
Then, they both turned to Li Dong.
Wu Kai spoke first.
He let out a sigh.
"Li Dong."
"You were right."
"Whether the mathematical inversion path is viable or not, I can’t say for sure right now."
"But this path of yours..."
"It’s faster than that one."
Lu Mingyuan nodded.
"You’ve already pushed this project more than halfway forward."
"What’s next for us is getting stuck on the most difficult part."
The office fell silent for a while.
Lu Mingyuan pushed the stack of data toward the center of the table.
Then he looked up at Li Dong.
"Li Dong."
"To continue down this path, we’re still missing the final piece."
Li Dong nodded.
He knew what "the final piece" Old Lu was talking about.
When Wu Kai had chatted with him in the office before, he had glossed over this part.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk about it.
It was that for this part, Wu Kai himself wasn’t sure what to do.
Lu Mingyuan picked up his tea from the table, took a sip, and continued.
"The final thing this group needs to accomplish..."
"Isn’t just to collect the single-atom’s fingerprint spectrum."
"That, if we follow your path, can be done within half a year."
"What we need to do is..."
"...on a single iron-atom nanozyme that is alive, reacting, and scavenging reactive oxygen species."
"While it’s alive and kicking, we need to directly figure out all its secrets and yank out its core physicochemical state all at once."
Li Dong listened without saying a word.
Wu Kai chimed in from the side.
"The needle we talked about before, that’s what it’s for."
"The tip of that coaxial probe needs to be milled down to the sub-nanometer scale using a focused ion beam."
When those words came out, Li Dong’s heart skipped a beat.
He knew that number.
He wasn’t a chemist by trade, but he’d been hanging around Wu Kai’s side lately and had devoured several reference books.
Sub-nanometer.
Not *a few* nanometers.
’At that scale, the FIB machines currently available in the country... the apex they mill for you comes out with a ring of amorphous material around the edge, scorched and warped by the ion beam. It’s a world of difference from the clean, symmetrical, and perpendicular geometric end face you actually want.’
’It’s not a matter of technique.’
’The machine itself simply can’t meet that standard.’
Lu Mingyuan continued.
"There are only a few places in the world that have a usable FIB of this caliber."
"The XTIP beamline group at Argonne National Laboratory has one."
"Over in Germany, a few of the Max Planck Institutes have one."