When I returned to China two days ago, I just got off the plane in Hong Kong, and I found that a buddy who hadn't been in touch for a long time sent a WeChat message, saying that plasma shield was made out by us.
At that time, my first reaction was that this buddy was funny, if this is true, wouldn't it be the Protoss shield in StarCraft, the Lagrange shield in EVE? The result was checked, and it was actually true...
Reality is sometimes magical.
It turned out that the National Defense University of Science and Technology issued an article at the end of last year, which talked in detail about how to use plasma to defend against high-power microwave attacks.
Today we're going to talk about thatPlasma shield?
The concepts mentioned in this article may sound a bit abstract. But I'll give you this example, and you'll get the idea.
You've all seen The Matrix, right?
In the first part, the octopus robot hits the human spaceship, and the human spaceship has a big move for self-protection, calledElectromagnetic pulse – EMP.
This thing is the nemesis of electronic devices, relying on ultra-high-energy electromagnetic wave pulses to overload electronic circuits and burn themselves out. It's useless for this thing to hit a friend in slippers, but when there is a military conflict between the two high-tech powers, it is much more convenient for you to go over and shoot an EMP first, and directly knock the opposite side back from the information age to the mechanical age, and then go up to harvest.
And the plasma shield we are engaged in is to protect against this EMP.
Speaking of which, many friends who understand electromagnetic technology may have questions, the technology of anti-EMP has long been available, so what is so special about this thing?
In simple terms,It can theoretically achieve all-band defense without dead ends, and the stronger the electromagnetic pulse emitted by the enemy, the stronger our shield will becomeIt's very sci-fi indeed.
The technological route of the United States
The first country to study electromagnetic defense was, of course, our old friend the United States.
When the atomic bomb was tested, American nuclear physicists observed that all radio equipment within a certain range failed. Immediately after that, the Soviet Union also developed the atomic bomb, and the Americans thought it was okay? As a result, the research on EMP defense technology was put on the agenda by the US military.
In the 50s, the United States began to study electromagnetic shielding technology to reduce the interference of EMP to military vehicles, aircraft and communication equipment. In the early days, their defense methods were basicMetal shielding is added to critical areas, or special metal materials are used to reduce EMP penetrationBut it didn't work out too well.
The principle of this metal shield blocking EMP is similar to the fact that we sometimes can't receive mobile phone signals in steel structure buildings. That is, the metal will induce an electric current under the action of the external changing magnetic field, and then the induced magnetic field will be generated to offset the external magnetic field.
But the problem is that military equipment is often large and angular, metal shielding often can not be fully covered, and the frequency of electromagnetic waves that metal shielding can block is related to the density of the grid, when the half-wavelength of electromagnetic waves is less than or equal to the size of the hole or gap, due to the diffraction effect we learned in middle school, electromagnetic waves will enter the equipment and continue to cause damage.
After the 60s, DARPA also participated in related research, developed filtering and grounding technology, and then developed EMP special materials and structures for protection in the 70s, and then gradually solidified this defense measure into a part of the standard equipment of the US military.
But the problem is that although these studies of the US military have accumulated for a long time, there has been no qualitative leap in technical indicators, and they have been using traditional electromagnetic protection methods, such as metal shielding and electromagnetic filters.
It's like the tank armor of the German army in World War II, but it was stacked from 20mm in the No. 2 tank in 1935 to 220mm in the rat test vehicle in 1945, but new technologies such as gap armor and composite armor that changed the competitive environment did not light up.
China's technology accumulation
Our EMP protection research started later than in the United States, in the 60s of the 20th century.
At the end of the 20 th century, with the shock of the Gulf War, our military also began to increase its investment in EMP defense technology, and the military and relevant scientific research institutions crossed the river by feeling the eagle sauce and jointly carried out a series of EMP effect experiments and defense technology research, and in the 21 st century, they basically caught up with the level of the US military.
However, after summing up the technical route of the US military and carrying out many years of practice, we discovered the shortcomings of the US military's technical route, so we decided to engage in "overtaking in corners" and taking the "software route" while crossing the river by feeling the stones.
Therefore, under the leadership of Professor Lin Fuchang and other experts, China's intelligent EMP defense system has realized real-time monitoring, automatic analysis and optimization of EMP threats through the introduction of sensors, control systems and advanced algorithms, which has greatly improved the efficiency and accuracy of EMP defense.
At the same time, our EMP defense technology and other security protection technologies can gradually be integrated and applied, forming a more comprehensive and comprehensive security protection system.
With the accumulation and development of technology, we finally have what we want to talk about todayPlasma shield?
Plasma shield?
To understand the technical core of plasma shield, it is necessary to understand a unique electromagnetic phenomenon that occurs on plasma, called:"Electronic avalanche".
As we know, plasma is the fourth form of matter after solids, liquids, and gases, and at high temperatures, the positive ions (nuclei) in the atoms that make up the matter are separated from the electrons, forming a state in which a large number of positively charged positive ions are mixed with negatively charged electrons, just like a paste.
The so-called electron avalanche refers to the fact that when high-energy electromagnetic waves are injected into this pulp, the electrons in it will be accelerated by the electromagnetic field, and when the energy reaches a certain level, they will break away from the neutral slurry electron-ion state and become free electrons.
With the continuation of high-energy electromagnetic waves, more and more high-energy free electrons will also frantically hit other electron-ion units, so that more electrons are separated, and these knocked out electrons are accelerated by the electromagnetic field, and they are also transformed into the role of "cannonballs", thus forming a chain reaction, and there are more and more free electrons in the plasma, and the speed of increase is getting faster and faster, which is the electron avalanche effect.
When enough free electrons accumulate in the plasma, it looks very similar to a metal in terms of macroscopic properties. What is the nature? It can shield electromagnetic fields.
Let's go into more detail hereThe principle of metal shielding electromagnetic fields
Everyone should have used a microwave oven, but do you remember that there is a clause in its instruction manual, that is, it is forbidden to put metal utensils. The main reason for this is that metals absorb small amounts but reflect large amounts of microwaves.
The absorption and reflection of microwaves by metals here is actually the shielding effect on electromagnetic fields. And the reason why it has this ability is mainly because of the large number of free electrons inside it.
When an electromagnetic wave hits a metal surface, the free electrons that are subjected to the electromagnetic field move, creating an induced current and an induced magnetic field inside the metal.
This induced electromagnetic field cancels out each other with the incident electromagnetic waves, ensuring that the external electromagnetic field cannot penetrate the metal.
The injected electromagnetic field (left) and the induced electromagnetic field (right) cancel each other out
From the perspective of quantum mechanics, the essence of electromagnetic waves is photons, and when photons hit electrons in metal, most of them will be reflected.
This suction is reversed, and the electromagnetic waves emitted are shielded.
The microwaves that are supposed to heat the water molecules in the food cannot completely enter the food due to the reflection of the metal, and will accumulate on the outside until the spark or arc inside the microwave oven, which is a great safety risk for both the microwave oven and the user.
This property of the metal can be used to defend against EMP.
And when we replace the metal mesh with plasma shields, there will be some disruptive progress.
First of all, the plasma is permeated on the surface of the device, and there is no problem that the angular protrusions cannot be defended, and there is no problem of grid vulnerabilities.
And more importantly, the scale of the electron avalanche of plasma is positively correlated with the intensity of the incident electromagnetic wave, that is, the stronger the opponent's attack, the stronger our defense, and the opponent's EMP has the effect of charging our plasma shield...
The traditional wisdom of the Chinese nation, "borrowing strength", has been completely understood by him.
* The researchers divided the microwaves generated from high-power microwave sources into two parts, one directly connected to the oscilloscope as a reference signal (control group), and one part was emitted through the transmitter horn and then injected into the receiver horn as the reception signal after being emitted through a layer of plasma.
This layer of plasma is generated by several high-frequency glow tubes, and when energized, the glow emitted means that the inert gas inside the tube is ionized, forming the plasma.
The experimental results show that the plasma has a positive effect on high-power microwaves (13GHz, 144kw) does have an obvious protective effect, and the signal attenuation is greater than 20dB, which is equivalent to reducing to the original 1 100, which can be said to be extremely effective.
The yellow bar is the output signal, and the green pattern is the receive signal;
The upper and lower figures show the signal characteristics before and after the plasma generator is turned on
Applications
Regarding this **, there is actually another very interesting point, that is, it was written in 2021, but it has not been made public until now.
After all, this is the ** of the military unit, and it is not as open and transparent as ordinary academic research.
The technical equipment of our army has always followed a standard, that is, "equipment generation, research and development generation, pre-research generation", so many things can be made public, which in itself means one thing-
Too backward to show.
When I was looking up the information, I also turned to an article about the announced plan of a US defense contractor, and when I translated it, the content was probably like this.
To put it simply, the US military feels the threat of the recent revolution in UAV technology to them, and wants to engage in short-range microwave anti-aircraft missiles to scrap the UAV sea of potential opponents.
Then, within a few days, we announced the plasma shield technology:
bro，i h**e the highground，don't even try。
Once the miniaturized plasma shield is universally equipped, the Air Force, hypersonic missiles, and even drones will be able to use it to penetrate defenses, and those existing electromagnetic ** will be useless.
The sea of stars is not empty words
Of course, gaining dominance in the involution competition on the planet is certainly not the ultimate goal of this kind of scientific research.
Looking at the entire plasma shield technology, it is more suitable for the application scenario of space.
The space environment is extremely harsh, and all kinds of sunspot flares supernovae** are equivalent to people sitting there every moment to put emp, and after being separated from the protection of the earth's magnetic field, this long-term electromagnetic radiation will pose a huge threat to astronauts and spacecraft. On the way to deep space, plasma shields are bound to become an important tool to protect astronauts and spacecraft from cosmic rays and other radiation.
One day, if we settle in the interstellar world, this thing can also be used to generate electricity, and the interstellar colonies that eat the solar wind will continue to supply energy, which is equivalent to a technical reserve for going to deep space.
Don't think this thing is whimsical, we talked about it before, controllable nuclear fusion technology is actually not so far away from us, and chemical rocket technology has also fallen into involution under the impetus of Brother Long, maybe we really have a chance to see the space age of mankind.
Not long ago, I went to an event organized by an observer network, and I participated in a roundtable discussion about the industrial competition between China and the United States, and the moderator was Li Shimo and Mr. Li.
Before taking the stage, a few of us were going to talk about what we were going to talk about offstage, and Mr. Li told us that there is an argument in the world that the United States wants to decouple from us, because the United States' technological research and development capabilities are unique in the world, and once we lose the technology transfer from the United States, our economy will be over. Our roundtable is here to counter this argument.
At that time, I thought that the publicity and promotion of their achievements by Chinese enterprises and scientific research institutions was really not in place. Li is always an investor, and I am a science and technology content, so we are watching all kinds of high-tech in China, the United States, and Europe every day, and we know how strong China is, sometimes it is ridiculously strong, so strong that it is science fiction, and if the decoupling of China and the United States has an impact on our economy, it is also on the consumer market side rather than on the ** side, but this information has obviously not spread to some friends outside the industry.
If China's current science and technology industry has a goal, it is definitely not the current United States, but the United States, which invented airplanes, televisions, the Internet, and assembly line production, reshaped the way of life of human beings, and used the technology of the 60s to send human beings to the moon.
After our round of scientific and technological accumulation, I am sure that China will have that level of invention and creation, and it will also reshape the way of life of human beingsWe can't see what it is yet, but it will be exciting.
References:
1.Research Progress on Strong Electromagnetic Protection Technology, Liu Peiguo, Liu Chenxi, et al.; National University of Defense Technology;
2.Research on the use of low-temperature plasma for high-power microwave protection, Li Zhigang, Qiu Zhinan, et al.; National University of Defense Technology;
3.A Brief Analysis of the Electromagnetic Pulse Defense Policy for Critical Infrastructure in the United States, Feng Hanliang et al.; Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology;
4."A Brief Analysis of the Threat Assessment Committee of the U.S. Congress on the Threat of Electromagnetic Pulse Attacks to the United States and Its Assessment Report", Feng Hanliang et al.; Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology;
5."Analysis of the Five Directions of the Development of New Technologies of the U.S. Army's Cyber Defense Equipment", Security Internal Reference;
6.Ballistic Missile Defense and U.S. Domestic Politics, Gu Guoliang; Institute of American Studies, Academy of Social Sciences;
7.The U.S. military's directives, instructions, standards, and test operating procedures for nuclear electromagnetic pulse researchs. military directives, instructions, standards, test operations procedure about nuclear electromagnetic pulse research (hanspub.org)
8.Academician Su Donglin: Research on Non-nuclear Strong Electromagnetic Pulse Threat and Protection Strategy of Major Infrastructure - Zhihu (zhihu.).com)
9.Research Progress on RF Front-end Strong Electromagnetic Pulse Protection (Excerpt) Electromagnetic Wave (SOHU.).com)
10.In-depth report on the military industry: two growth logics, four major investment directions Tencent News (QQ.).com)
11.Plasma protection against high-power microwaves Yang Geng
12.Research Status of Electromagnetic Pulse Protection Technology Liu Yang
13.Research on the Impact of High-power Microwave Missiles on the Battlefield Environment and Countermeasure Technology by Liu Zhenlin
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