Last week, South Korean physicists claimed something startling. In Two or more people can be a group. PapersThey claim to have created material which “opens up a new age for humanity” after uploading it on the arXiv Preprint Server.
LK-99 (a compound based on lead) is purportedly a low-temperature, high-pressure room-temperature solvent. Superconductor. A material that conducts electricity under normal conditions without resistance could have a huge impact on energy production and transmission, transportation, computing, and other technology areas.
The papers have generated a lot of excitement online and there are several attempts to bring them back. Replicate the work. Gleichzeitig, there are There are many ways to report on the news.Korean researchers disagreed over whether their research should be released.
Today could have been the most important physics discovery in my lifetime. People don’t seem to fully understand the implications of a superconductor that can withstand pressure and temperature at ambient temperatures. Here’s what it could do to our lives.
— Alex Kaplan (@alexkaplan0) July 26, 2023
Why superconductors super?
As they jostle, electrons bump against atoms when an electric current is flowing through a normal conductor such as copper wire. In the process, electrons lose energy and heat up the wire.
In a Superconductor, the electrons are free to move around without any resistance. Superconducting wires transmit electricity without wasting energy. Magnets that are superconducting can contain plasmas and lift trains.
However, all known superconductors require very low temperatures (typically lower than –100 ℃) or extremely high pressures (more than 100,000 times ordinary atmospheric pressure). Due to these limitations, superconductors can be expensive and unsuitable for some applications.
Researchers from several teams have claimed that they can detect the temperature of a room. SuperconductivityThe claims made in the past about various substances have not been able to withstand scrutiny. Last week, an American physicist Ranga Dias’ superconductivity research was published. RetractionThere are suspicions that data is being fabricated.
We should be skeptical of the new claims, even though a superconductor at room temperature is an incredible discovery.
Bold claims
The South Korean researchers say LK-99 can be made in a baking process that combines the minerals lanarkite (Pb₂SO₅) and copper phosphide (Cu₃P). They say the resulting material shows two key signs of superconductivity at normal air pressure and at temperatures up to 127 ℃: zero resistance and magnetic levitation.
The authors have proposed a plausible explanation for how LK-99 could display superconductivity at room temperature, but they have not provided any experimental evidence. The papers presented data that appears inconclusive.
Meissner’s effect is one way to identify a superconductor. This causes it to levitate above a magnetic field.
The aforementioned is a video demonstrationThe researchers place a piece LK-99 on top of a magnet. The researchers position a piece of LK99 over a magnet.
Superconductors should exhibit full levitation as well as “quantum-locking” that keeps them in a fixed location relative to the magnetic field. The behaviour shown in the film could be due to the imperfections of the sample. Only a portion of the sample is superconductive.
It is still too early to declare that we have compelling evidence of superconductivity at room temperature.
What’s Next
LK99 has only been described in two arXiv publications, neither of which has undergone peer review. The two papers have similar measurements but the presentation is different. There are differences in both the authorship and content of each paper, which do not inspire confidence.
What happens next? Science is in full swing.
Experts will carefully review the papers. Researchers in other laboratories will try to replicate the experiments described by the papers and see if they can create a superconductor at room temperature.
The LK-99 claims must be validated and verified. If the claims can be validated and verified, this could mark the most significant advancement in materials engineering and physics in recent decades.
It is important to be cautious with the claims made until the research has undergone a thorough review and testing. We are all eagerly awaiting the results of the verification process.
Mahboobeh Shahbazi, Senior Research Fellow, Materials Science, Queensland University of Technology
This article was originally published by The ConversationCreative Commons licensed. The Licensed Terms are available here. Original article.
