A tentative but less nebulous step toward superconductor-fueled electronics.

Superconductor Breakthrough Replicated, Twice, in Preliminary Testing::It’s been a rough few days in the condensed matter physics realm following claims of the world’s first room-temperature superconductor being achieved. However, work to verify and replicate the results

  • astropenguin5@lemmy.worldEnglish
    441·
    1 year ago

    From reading through the article and it’s sources, here’s what seems to be the case:

    • a simulation at Berkely National Labs with their supercomputing capabilities has verified that LK-99 theoretically has superconducting properties

    • Argonne National Labs also seems to be involved and doing stuff, but nothing official from them yet, besides maybe helping with simulation stuff

    • a Russian scientist is working on improving the synthesis process and has made some low purity samples that produce the Messnier effect, but higher purity than the original I think. It’s all from Twitter (x) threads and a little hard to follow. Her handle is @iris_IGB

    • China National Lab (Shenyang) first principles analysis suggest gold and silver doping LK-99 will make superconductors as well. [Directly copied from article]

    • Under the guidance of Professor Chang Haixin, postdoctoral Wu Hao and doctoral student Yang Li of the School of Materials Science and Technology of Huazhong University of Science and Technology they have successfully verified and synthesized the LK-99 crystal. It can be magnetically levitated for the first time and this is shown on a bilibili video. They expect to realize the true sense of non-contact superconducting magnetic levitation. [Also Directly copied from article]

    Direct source for last 2 points and also more info in general

    https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/07/tracking-lk-99-superconductor-replication-efforts.html

    I would say with 95 percent confidence that: it’s real bois!

    A few caveats however: according to the simulation, the conductive pathways only forms when the copper bonds to a specific higher-energy spot in the crystal, so getting higher purities will likely need a fair amount of innovation on the production process. There are some other complications with the synthesis, so even if it is fully and properly confirmed with more papers and such it will still likely be a while before it can start to be used effectively.

      • Serinus@lemmy.worldEnglish
        121·
        1 year ago

        No, not really. You can tell by his “95% confidence” quip where he tries to make his opinion sound scientific.

        I hope this works, but there’s more reason to be skeptical than positive. There have been an awful lot of replication failures.

        Wait until it’s reproduced somewhere outside of a simulation or China. People are working on it, because if one in a hundred of these seemingly bogus claims turns out to be true, the 99 wasted efforts will still have been worth it.

      • astropenguin5@lemmy.worldEnglish
        10·
        1 year ago

        Yep, imo it seems like this is just the first step of room temperature superconductors, there is LOTS of room for improvement, even if LK-99 itself isn’t useful for anything real-world I think it at the very least is a jumping-off point for innovation on the concept, and finding more compounds that have similar properties