Korean Researchers Claim First Room-Temperature, Ambient-Pressure Super-Conductor

Yazata

Valued Senior Member
Supposedly it's relatively easy to manufacture too. If this proves to be true, and if it can be replicated, it could be a game-changer.

I have to say that I'm rather skeptical at this point.

Here's one of the two papers. I'm not qualified to evaluate it.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2307.12008.pdf

Here's the other paper

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2307.12037.pdf

New Scientist expresses some skepticism

https://archive.is/2023.07.26-18111...erconductor-breakthrough-met-with-scepticism/

(Just to troll JamesR, I'll add that this might be alien tech!)
 
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Right now, multiple groups are hurredly trying to synthesize their own samples of this purported high-temperature superconductor so that they can perform their own tests.

But pending that, it's not looking so good on the ad hominem front...

It's starting to appear that the first paper was submitted for publication by one of the authors, without agreement by the rest of the team who thought that the research wasn't ready. And it looks like the second paper was produced by the team in a rush after the first paper was published.

Here's more from the fresh Wikipedia article edited hours ago. Something doesn't seem quite right there. Wikipedia says that Kwon (the guy who allegedly uploaded the paper to ArXiv without agreement by the others) presented the results at a symposium at Korea University on Friday July 28, 2023. Meanwhile on the same day (July 28) the university was telling Yonhap news agency that Kwon was no longer affiliated with them. (Despite his giving a presentation there the same day.) Was he fired? Did he quit to start a private company to commercialize this stuff? One of the members of the team supposedly also told Yonhap that Kwon left his position (CTO) at the Quantum Energy Research Centre (Q-Centre) four months ago.

I'm starting to think that CC might have another candidate for her "Compromised Science" thread.

F2IYSPiXUAAq5lO
 
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Update as of August 1 from Science.

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/room-temperature-superconductor-new-developments

It appears that several groups have produced samples that seem to display some superconductivity-like effects. But much more rigorous testing remains to be done.

Perhaps more interesting is theoretical work both at Shenyang University in China and at the US Dept of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory that both independently ran the material composition through the same Density Functional Theory computer model and both groups got results that seem to indicate that the material could theoretically have strong superconductivity effects.

This obviously awaits experimental confirmation.

So this seems to have already moved beyond the cold-fusion situation where nobody could explain precisely how it could work. This time there does seem to be a possible mechanism.

This story already has so many exotic twists and turns that books will probably be written about it, no matter how it turns out. If it turns out to be real, there are going to be lots of nobel prizes awarded and engineers will go crazy inventing practical applications for it.

The next few days are going to be very interesting.
 
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For whatever it's worth... Chinese researchers claim to have observed something approaching superconductivity, apparently at 100K (-279F). It's a very rushed announcement (there's apparently intense competition to be the first to confirm this material does what is claimed for it)

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2308.01192.pdf

See also

https://twitter.com/alexkaplan0/status/1686876306871394304

https://twitter.com/Robert_Palgrave/status/1686927543767859200

Interesting discussion of variations between the composition of the material this latest Chinese group used and the original Korean material. Apparently lots of variables in how synthesis takes place.

But so far, it still looks like there might be something to it.
 
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Looks as if this was all a mistake: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LK-99

"Many different labs attempted to replicate the work, and were able to reach initial results within weeks, as the process of producing the material is relatively straightforward.[4] As of 10 August 2023, the growing consensus is that it is not a superconductor at any temperature,[5][6][7][8] but that impurities common to the proposed synthesis could produce resistance drops[9] and magnetic response[10] in small samples[11] that mimic transitions in superconductors.[12]"
 
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