Scramble to Validate Superconductor Breakthrough Confirms Zero Resistance, With a Catch

Meissner Effect (not LK-99)
(Image credit: Shutterstock (2040030434))

The scientific community is still scrambling to confirm the recent revolutionary claim by Korean scientists that they have created a room-temperature, ambient-pressure superconductor. But with enough brainpower looking into the subject of the LK-99 material, it's bound to be a matter of time before the superconductivity claims are fully confirmed or denied. 

Once again, researchers in China seem to be at the forefront: today, scientists with the Physics Department of Southeast University, a top university in Nanjing, China, have reported measuring zero electrical resistance, a key requirement for superconductivity, in a sample of LK-99 they produced from scratch. However, that comes with the caveat that they could only achieve the properties at -163C, not at the room temperature touted by the original paper. As with other efforts from other teams, two of which claim to have confirmed certain other aspects of the claimed superconducting breakthrough, the new results from the Southeast University team are preliminary — the team is still studying different methods of fabricating the material, with plans to provide more results in the future. Other research teams are also still working to replicate the initial claims.

After having successfully synthesized LK-99, which they say was purer than the samples the original Korean time achieved, the Chinese research team helmed by Doctor Sun Yue looked into the material's conductive properties, finding some "very interesting electronic properties of this material." As a reminder, LK-99 is a compound of lanarkite [Pb₂SO₅] and copper phosphide [Cu₃P] baked within a 4-day, multi-step, small batch, solid-state synthesis process that was nevertheless also achieved over a Russian kitchen counter.

In this case, the "very interesting electronic properties" refer to the material's ability to conduct electricity without any resistance — leading to incredible efficiency savings that could get PC enthusiasts something like that 30 GHz processor Intel promised but never delivered.

The above video shows the researcher explaining the findings. Using a four-point probe method, the scientists measured their synthesized LK-99 at 0 resistance at an ambient temperature of 110K (-163 º C) and at normal air pressure. They also verified that LK-99 transitioned in and out of its zero resistance state depending on whether it was subject to a strong electric field, another hallmark of superconductivity. Here's a summation of the team's findings, taken from the Wikipedia live-tracker page:

"Claimed to have synthesized LK-99 and to have measured superconductivity up to a temperature of 110 kelvin. Claimed to have observed an abrupt drop in resistance between ~300K and 220K, aligning with the Korean LKK team's results. Claimed to have confirmed structural consistency with x-ray diffraction." 

The confirmed absence of electrical resistance now comes together with yesterday's news that confirmed at least one-half of the superconducting equation was solved: LK-99 showcased the Meissner effect (originally Meissner-Ochsenfeld), which results in the levitation of materials as they interact with the Meissner-effect-induced magnetic field. And now, it seems the other half of the equation, resistance-less electrical conduction, was verified in LK-99.

But questions remain even here: it seems that LK-99 only shows superconductivity at 110 kelvin (-163C), which disputes the "room-temperature" bit originally claimed (although all tech enthusiasts that have dabbled in liquid nitrogen cooling know that 110 kelvin is handleable, if not practical). It's also unclear why LK-99 would show both diamagnetism (responsible for levitation) and superconductivity, but within different temperature bands — expectations would paint it more as a "buy one, get two" promotion.

Yet one plus one generally being equal to two, we seem to have independent confirmation of several facets of a superconducting compound being successfully synthesized. 

But while this is incredibly promising news, there are still caveats. For one: it's strange that two teams verified different halves of the superconducting requirements, but no team has successfully verified both (as of the time of writing). You would think that it would make more sense for one side to take more time to crack than the other; otherwise, why didn't the initial Meissner-effect observation also show the hallmarks of zero electrical resistance? What is stopping these teams of extremely talented individuals from achieving what others before them did in full? 

In the video, Professor Yue himself says that while promising, the team's results aren't proof that LK-99 is the superconductor breakthrough we've been waiting for. For that to happen, you'd have to wait for a credible institution to confirm both the Meissner effect and the zero electrical resistance halves of the equation — at the same time. And even then, it won't be enough: their announcement (cue all other scientific prizes) will have to be followed up by other institutions up to a point where there's enough overlap in the results that says: "This is more than fabricated data or a mere fluke". 

And that's not saying anything of all the sweet spots this material needs to hit to be the hero we want it to be. It has to be abundant enough and easy enough to access that it's relatively cheap to mine; then it has to be relatively cheap to process and synthesize at a mass scale; and then it still has to be turned into actually useable bits of electronics that are compatible enough with our current fabrication methods. Talk about high standards; that's years of work right there.

For now, LK-99 seems to have some limitations. It's currently hard to synthesize at high purities (because it only happens in very specific areas of the compound), meaning yield is likely to be poor. And in fact, perhaps this purity problem (acknowledged in the original paper) is the root of most of these issues: scientists have had a difficult time creating enough quantities of the material that display any of the superconducting or diamagnetic features. There could be unknown factors at play at a chemistry level that explain the low yield, but if that's true, then we can't really trust the replicability of the results just yet.

Another limitation is that the material could be one-dimensional - meaning that it only presents superconductivity on a section of it, which could be why the levitation in the original video wasn't even. That still means a load of possible applications while unlocking new ones — it's never a pure loss.

For now, the jury is still out on the original Korean teams' claims of a room-temperature superconductor, and the Southeast University researchers will continue to study the new material and fabrication methods as they search to find the correct mixture to replicate the room-temperature superconductor. For now, some claims have been preliminarily confirmed, while others remain out of reach. Several other teams are also racing to validate the paper, so we're sure to learn more over the coming days. 

Francisco Pires
Freelance News Writer

Francisco Pires is a freelance news writer for Tom's Hardware with a soft side for quantum computing.

  • JTWrenn
    Sounds like a one step forward but not an incredible leap. That is how these things usually go so we should be happy about this not sad that we didn't get some crazy breakthrough. They will learn from this, and iterate and get it closer and closer to room temp.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    JTWrenn said:
    Sounds like a one step forward but not an incredible leap. That is how these things usually go so we should be happy about this not sad that we didn't get some crazy breakthrough. They will learn from this, and iterate and get it closer and closer to room temp.
    I'm not too sure about the "learning" part as a massive chunk of material science is just throwing everything at the wall and see if anything useful comes out of it. Many a material revolution were simply due to forgetting/neglecting to clean up after an experiment and coming back to a surprise or a failed experiment for which someone happens to have an idea for like 3M's super-glue failure that became the famous Post-It adhesive. Once something promising pops up, the real science of figuring out how to make it cost-effectively at-scale begins.
    Reply
  • I like the concept. But first thing to be noted is that, LK-99 comes from the two arXiv papers, which have not been peer-reviewed.

    Both papers include a data plot detailing LK-99’s magnetic properties. Both plots were sourced from the same dataset and should thus be identical—but the plot in one paper has a y-axis with a scale that is about 7,000 times larger than the other. So there is kind of inconsistency here.

    We just need to exercise caution here.

    https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.12008
    https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.12037
    And, as you can see in this video demonstration, the researchers position a piece of LK-99 over a magnet. One edge of the flat disk of LK-99 rises, but the other edge appears to maintain contact with the magnet.

    Naturally, one would expect a superconductor to display full levitation and also “quantum locking” which keeps it in a fixed position relative to the magnet. But the behavior I see in the video may be due to imperfections in the sample, meaning only part of the sample becomes superconductive.

    Observe the LK-99 material, it is actually not completely floating over the magnet, and only one side is being repelled. It is not totally clear if the other side is magnetic, or dropping down from gravity since it is not superconductive.

    This is a point of contention.

    So it is too early to say we have been presented with compelling evidence for room-temperature superconductivity. There rises a concern that some of the results could be explained by errors in experimental procedure combined with imperfections in the LK-99 sample.

    I mean, although, while the LK-99 crystal does exhibit "diamagnetism", its magnetic levitation capability is relatively weak and does not possess complete “zero resistance.”

    The behavior is kind of reminiscent of a semiconductor curve. But in any case, even if LK-99 demonstrates superconducting properties, they likely exist in trace amounts and cannot form a continuous superconducting path.

    Some of the recent research findings which I just read online, indicate that the material’s resistance at room temperature is not zero, and magnetic levitation has not been observed. So does LK-99 exhibits characteristics more akin to a semiconductor rather than a superconductor ??

    Though, superconductors aren’t the only things that float above magnets—graphite, for example, also levitates.

    Or, it might be possible that the "partial" magnetic levitation illustrated in the paper is just an illusion generated by another magnet that’s outside the frame of the image, pointing to the fact that the object isn’t fully levitating, most likely due to imperfections in the LK-99 material, where parts of the substance are in a superconductive state while other parts are not ?

    https://sciencecast.org/casts/suc384jly50n
    Reply
  • Kamen Rider Blade
    Even at -163 °C, that's something.

    That's not too bad if it's at normal Atmosphere.

    Liquid Nitrogen Cooling that OC enthusiasts tend to use for OC benchmarks can get down to -195 °C.

    And LN² isn't all that hard to acquire.

    If you need to super charge a small specific core to get SuperConductivity, you could probably incentivize a group to make a Constantly running server PC with a LARGE LN² tank.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    Kamen Rider Blade said:
    Even at -163 °C, that's something.
    If it does work at -163C, then its biggest benefit would be not requiring any exotic materials assuming it can withstand the current and magnetic flux densities for a given application.

    Kamen Rider Blade said:
    If you need to super charge a small specific core to get SuperConductivity, you could probably incentivize a group to make a Constantly running server PC with a LARGE LN² tank.
    If you are going to run something constantly under LN2, it may be cheaper long-term to get an appropriate heat pump to re-condense your LN2 like some MRI operators do to lower their LHe costs.
    Reply
  • TJ Hooker
    Metal Messiah. said:
    Both papers include a data plot detailing LK-99’s magnetic properties. Both plots were sourced from the same dataset and should thus be identical—but the plot in one paper has a y-axis with a scale that is about 7,000 times larger than the other. So there is kind of inconsistency here.
    In one of the papers, they Y-axis units are listed as 10^(-4) emu/g. In the equivalent plot in thr other paper, the units are just emu/g.

    Putting units + numerical labels together, the difference in Y axis values between the plots in the two papers is only ~50%.
    Reply
  • Kamen Rider Blade
    InvalidError said:
    The main reason specialty fiber cables cost so much is low volume. The cable itself would likely come down to $15-20 if everyone needed some for everything.
    I concur, most of the cost are the transceivers on either end for lengthy connections.

    InvalidError said:
    If it does work at -163C, then its biggest benefit would be not requiring any exotic materials assuming it can withstand the current and magnetic flux densities for a given application.
    Yup, if it works at normal atmosphere but at -163 °C, I'd be pretty stoked that it doesn't need a specialized pressure vessel. LN² is already common enough as is, somebody is going to make it work running on a consistent LN² supply.

    InvalidError said:
    If you are going to run something constantly under LN2, it may be cheaper long-term to get an appropriate heat pump to re-condense your LN2 like some MRI operators do to lower their LHe costs.
    Or MRI's can move over to this new SuperConductor material and only have to use LN² instead of LHe.
    That's on top of using the Heat pump to Re-Condense the LN².

    Helium is getting rarer over time and is going to become a critical resource farely soon.

    The world is running out of helium. Here's why doctors are worried.
    The fate of America’s largest supply of helium is up in the air
    Helium Shortage 4.0: What caused it and when will it end?
    Reply
  • evdjj3j
    Kamen Rider Blade said:
    I concur, most of the cost are the transceivers on either end for lengthy connections.


    Yup, if it works at normal atmosphere but at -163 °C, I'd be pretty stoked that it doesn't need a specialized pressure vessel. LN² is already common enough as is, somebody is going to make it work running on a consistent LN² supply.


    Or MRI's can move over to this new SuperConductor material and only have to use LN² instead of LHe.
    That's on top of using the Heat pump to Re-Condense the LN².

    Helium is getting rarer over time and is going to become a critical resource farely soon.

    The world is running out of helium. Here's why doctors are worried.
    The fate of America’s largest supply of helium is up in the air
    Helium Shortage 4.0: What caused it and when will it end?
    There are already high temp low pressure superconductors that work with LN2.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-temperature_superconductivity
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    evdjj3j said:
    There are already high temp low pressure superconductors that work with LN2.
    And most of those require either rare elements like Strontium, Lanthanum, Titanium or Cerium, or absurdly high pressure (1000+ atmospheres) that you cannot really use anywhere outside a lab. Neodymium will likely join the list of unaffordable metals that need to be avoided as much as possible soon enough.

    For a superconductor revolution to really occur, we need it to be relatively affordable and not require exotic cooling like a constant supply of LN2. If a refined version of LK-99 can be made to work at -40C - high enough that normal coolants and heat pumps can be used - then the superconductor age may really take off.
    Reply
  • Kamen Rider Blade
    evdjj3j said:
    There are already high temp low pressure superconductors that work with LN2.
    You're right, but the formulations for the existing ones seem more complex & expensive in terms of raw materials than what is being proposed.

    Hg12Tl3Ba30Ca30Cu45O127 {Mercury Thallium Barium Calcium Copper Oxide}
    Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10 (BSCCO) {Bismuth Strontium Calcium Copper Oxide}
    YBa2Cu3O7 (YBCO) {Yttrium Barium Copper Oxide}

    vs

    As a reminder, LK-99 is a compound of lanarkite and copper phosphide baked within a 4-day, multi-step, small batch, solid-state synthesis process that was nevertheless also achieved over a Russian kitchen counter.
    Lead, Sulfur, Oxygen, Copper, Phosporus

    If this formulation could lead to "Cheap to Mass Produce" 'High Temp Ambient Room Pressure' SuperConductors that can work with LN2, I'd be happy.

    It's a step in the right direction.
    Reply