Although Princeton's chemistry major is not as famous as physics and mathematics, it is also ranked 15th in the world. If it is accurate to the organic field, the ranking has to rely on a little bit forward.

In particular, the Frick Chemical Laboratory, built 11 years later, is one of the top chemical laboratories in North America. Although the big bulls in the field can't match the top 1 MIT, the hardware conditions will not fall behind too much.

Many people think that Princeton has no labs, but it is just a beautiful misunderstanding. In the Ivy League school, Princeton's alumni association is definitely rich and expensive. And this can be seen from Lu Zhou’s annual salary of 400,000 US dollars.

Under the introduction of Witten, Lu Zhou met Professor Paul J. Chirik Paulj.hirik of Princeton University.

Although the professor looks very young, in the field of organic chemistry, he is definitely a big cow. And just 16 years ago, he just won a US President's Green Chemistry Challenge Award for a paper on Siene.

The "11" of Goldbach's conjecture in number theory is famous, and similar problems exist in organic synthesis, such as the famous "22" problem.

The olefin cycloaddition reaction is very common in organic synthesis. The well-known dielsalde π 2π cycloaddition reaction is a six-membered ring formed by diene 4π and olefin 2π under thermal conditions.

However, another seemingly simpler reaction of cycloaddition of 2π2π olefins to form a cyclobutane ring is not so easy. Due to the limitation of orbital symmetry, this reaction often requires photochemical reaction conditions to activate, but this reaction pathway tends to be inefficient and poorly specific.

Professor Chiric, who contributed to siene in 15 years, proposed a completely new way to solve this problem by using iron catalysts to convert simple feedstock olefins to cyclobutane structures under mild heating conditions.

It is reported that the industry is full of interest in this technology, and the related patents have also brought millions of dollars in returns to the professor.

When he learned that Lu Zhou was interested in computational materials science, Professor Chiric immediately showed a strong interest in him and invited him to his laboratory.

In this magical place of Princeton, there may be historians who have been attracted to mathematics or physics in the past, but there is hardly any mathematics professor at the top of the subject's contempt chain, who is willing to go and study other things, even though many things are more money than mathematics.

“The status of this emerging discipline of computing materials is rising, but many people who have studied this piece have gone to Silicon Valley for graphic processing. Why do you are interested in this direction?” Handed a cup of coffee to Lu Zhou. Professor Rick asked him to sit down and asked curiously.

"Because mathematics is an interesting thing, I intend to try to make it shine in a wider field, not just the ivory tower in the number theory." Lu Zhou said with a smile.

"Your opinion is very unique," Chiric leaned back in his chair and smiled. "Every time I argued with the professors of the Institute of Advanced Studies, they would tell me that the mathematics should be pure." ”

"They are right. The mathematics is really pure. But in my personal opinion, the tools developed by pure research do not necessarily have to be used to solve pure problems," Lu Zhou said with a smile. I took my own point of view and paused for a while. I continued. "In fact, I had participated in similar projects before I went to North America. I just couldn't continue because I was too busy. In order to complete my research, I would like to borrow some experimental equipment. ”

In fact, it is mainly for the purpose of writing a thesis, the design method of the target product has been registered patent, and even similar experiments have been completed in the laboratory of Jinda.

But he is now a professor at Princeton, and he must do the experiment again for the credibility of the paper. Materials and materials are different from mathematics. The location of the experiment and the number of experimental equipment must be marked in the paper.

If he uses data from a year ago and is still on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, he is likely to be suspected of fabricating data and failing to pass the review. Because the academic editor responsible for peer review is not responsible for “repetitive experiments”, it is only strictly necessary to check these details.

After all, you can't ask others to take the time to help you review the manuscript, and also help you to do the experiment again.

All reviews are based on the fact that the contributor is absolutely honest with the data he provides and is backed by his or her academic reputation. So occasionally there will be some papers published, sensational, and more attention by peers, but finally retracted by the journal.

This situation is most common in the biological field, because many biological experiments are really close.

Looking at the list of equipment that Lu Zhou took out, Professor Chiric opened the drawers generously.

Because the experimental equipment and materials listed in the list are not dangerous, after learning that Lu Zhou had experimental experience, he was very confident to leave the key in his hands.

"No problem! Take it, but remember to be careful when doing the experiment."

Putting the key into his pocket, Lu Zhou said with a smile: "I promise that the equipment you borrowed from me will look like before, and what it will look like after the experiment."

"No, I mean, don't break yourself," Chiric joked. "I would rather have a problem with the instrument, and don't worry about it. Otherwise, the people of the institute will tear me away." It is."

Lu Zhou laughed and left a sentence, "I will definitely not," and he got up and said goodbye to him.

......

The related experiment Lu Zhou has already done it once, and repeating it is just a matter of getting used to it.

Design the test process, collect data, label the material number used, and even the location and time of the experiment.

Strictly speaking, this is the first time Lu Zhou has tried to write a material science paper.

Although Si was used to calculate materials in the past, in a strict sense, it is just an applied mathematics paper. It is only a mathematical model calculated by the calculation of the mixing ratio of cement material and carbon nanotube material. It does not involve specific Experimental part.

However, many things are actually connected.

As long as the format is learned, for Lu Zhou, the writing of the thesis is not a very difficult thing.

It took two days to do two sets of experiments day and night. On the third day, Lu Zhou slept until the big noon. After getting up, he sat at the desk and began to write a thesis to the computer.

Title: A Polydimethylsilane Stabilized Interface Film for a High Performance Lithium Battery Anode

Abstract: This paper considers a polydimethylsilane raw material, through the etching of hydrofluoric acid, to obtain an improved polydimethylsiloxane nanoporous film, and it covers the surface of the negative electrode material by spin coating. Through sem electron microscopy, it is found that the pdms film has a nanopore structure, which can provide an effective transmission channel for lithium ions and effectively suppress the growth of lithium dendrites...

Looking at the beginning of the eye, Lu Zhou nodded with satisfaction.

Although with the sensational effect of this invention, he can write more exaggerated points, but the cowhide is too big to easily give the reviewer a bad impression.

What's more, he is still a newcomer in the field of materials science. People who do material research really don't necessarily know him.

After writing the title and abstract, Lu Zhou began to write the body part.

This is different from writing a mathematics paper that writes and frowns. When you enter the proof process of mathematics into the computer, Lu Zhou occasionally rethinks it again. Think about whether the "obvious" question is "obvious". of.

But the material science paper, the flow of the experiment, he has already understood the data, the data is also unchangeable, writing is naturally flowing.

After spending three days, Lu Zhou finally completed the writing of the paper and checked it from beginning to end, confirming that there were no major problems.

As for the choice of submitted journals, after some careful consideration, he finally chose nature natural journal naturehemistry natural chemistry as the target of submission, with an impact factor of 25.87.

This kind of professional article is more appropriate in the journal than the main journal that is biased towards the science.

In the legendary nature, the rate of rejection is as high as 90, and only one person can successfully publish the magazine.

Even with this rejection rate, Lu Zhou felt that it was necessary to challenge himself.

After logging in to the submission website and filling out the personal information, click Upload.

Thinking of the influence factor of more than 20, Lu Zhou mouth can not help but evoke a smile.

Undoubtedly, this is the highest impact factor among all the journals he has voted on.

But soon, Lu Zhou’s brow could not help but frown slightly.

I don't know if it is an illusion, he always feels...

I seem to be losing money?