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Summary of events so far: The claim: Room temp (~300K) superconductor exists and we got it! The replication attempts: The production method is so poorly docum
by tomohelix 3y ago
Summary of events so far:
The claim: Room temp (~300K) superconductor exists and we got it!
The replication attempts: The production method is so poorly documented only a fraction of the samples being made shows any interesting properties. And among those interesting ones, results varies. Very few, if any, attempt actually completely shows the entire spectrum of properties and behaviors of a true superconductor at room temperature yet. But those kinds of experiments take time so it isn't an indicator of problem.
My take: It is probably something interesting but not well understood. Best case scenario, the original sample in the Korean lab probably won the synthesis lottery and is actually a true room temp superconductor. Worst case scenario, we got another class of high temp (warmer than liquid nitrogen but cold enough that applications are limited) superconductor but nothing revolutionary since at this point, it is pretty conclusive that there is something interesting with LK-99.
- brucethemoose2 3y agoSome literature suggests its a "one dimensiononal" superconductor only kinda works in tiny monocrystaline grains. ...But maybe thats even more interesting for, say, microelectronics? Especially if the resistance orthogonal to the superconductivity is high, if such a thing is even possible?
- ThrowawayTestr 3y agoZero loss diodes seem pretty useful.
- distortedsignal 3y agoI don’t think this would be zero-loss diodes - it would probably superconduct in some x-axis while being non-superconducting in the y- and z-axis. Even then, it’s not clear to me what the conductivity is like in the non-superconducting axies.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jacquesm 3y agoEspecially if the material happens to have photo electric properties too...
- fsckboy 3y ago...and gain, at an incredibly fast slew rate! I mean, we're laundry list fantasizing, right? [shrug emoji]
- jacquesm 3y agoWell, yes. But both Silicon, Selenium and Germanium as well as all metals that are shiny are photoelectric. If this thing can form diodes that open a potential path to very high efficiency solar cells. It wouldn't be the first either: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep11504 https://www.nature.com/articles/srep11504 "Origin of photovoltaic effect in superconducting YBa2Cu3O6.96 ceramics"
- mmusson 3y agoHow would that work? A diode requires a p-n junction created by doping the substrate. It has low resistance in one direction but ideally infinite resistance in the other direction.
- mmusson 3y agoI just saw an article that explains the superconducting diode effect https://phys.org/news/2023-08-ubiquitous-superconductive-diode-effect-thin.amp https://phys.org/news/2023-08-ubiquitous-superconductive-dio... So theres the answer.
- wbl 3y agoThe really cute thing is conducting in one axis insulating in the other two. Then you get to have a very high density interconnect for free.
- ibic 3y agoI think you are referring to the pioneer work done by Prof. Chair Tong-seek (or Dongsik Choi as another spelling) here? https://twitter.com/sanxiyn/status/1684437744406392833 https://twitter.com/sanxiyn/status/1684437744406392833 Any Korean can give some brief summary over the book that tweets mentioned?
- ssamt 3y agoThere is a short introduction right on the link. "The author writes on the influence and meaning of the certain future superconductor revolution on humanity, and while showing similar guise as Western science, he attempts to maintain the notion of the Oriental spirit, the confidence and self-esteem of East Asian scientist." Something like that. I'm not sure what it means. (Also, yes, Choi Dongsik is probably correct.)
- floxy 3y agoThe one-dimensional things seems like it could make it complicated to measure the resistance. Especially since the bulk material that seems like people are making isn't being laid down in thin films where you might know which direction the conductivity might go. What if there are superconducting grains/domains that abut to each other, but the 1-D paths are then not aligned? Even if you knew that the "domains" were aligned with each other, but didn't know the orientation, it seems like you'd measure a drop-off in resistance, but not to zero at the critical temperature. Maybe?
- frognumber 3y agoSuch things are possible, and not even very uncommon. The human body has tissues with conductivity different in different dimensions. If you'd like to create one yourself, take a bunch of parallel insulated wires. Conductivity will be low along the wires, and high perpendicular to them. Or alternated high-resistivity and low-resistivity sheets. Conduction will be low parallel to the sheets, and high going through them. Lots of things behave like that.
- monocasa 3y agoSee also Z-tape. https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/b10167835/ https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/b10167835/
- aziaziazi 3y ago> human tissues > isolated wires > alternated sheets The thinks you describes are systems made of multiple materials. Are you aware of a materials that behave that way by its own ?
- Filligree 3y agoNo, and LK-99 isn’t made of a single material either.
- criddell 3y agoHow do you mean? It isn’t like a wire where you typically have separate insulator and conductor materials, is it?
- aziaziazi 3y agoCan you elaborate on that ? For noobs like me, LK-99 only contains Pb9Cu(PO4)6O, doesn’t it ?
- Someone 3y ago_If_ some of its properties change depending on the direction you measure, it can’t look the same in all directions. As a simple example, consider graphite. That’s just ‘C’, but the crystalline version is layered, so it behaves differently depending on what direction you look at it. Like wood, it will split easier when hammered parallel to the layers than when hit oblique to it.
- pjc50 3y agoAn even better version of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anisotropic_conductive_film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anisotropic_conductive_film or "zebra tape", maybe.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jcranmer 3y ago> Worst case scenario, we got another class of high temp (warmer than liquid nitrogen but cold enough that applications are limited) superconductor but nothing revolutionary since at this point, it is pretty conclusive that there is something interesting with LK-99. I don't think that's the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario is that there is actually nothing interesting with LK-99, and everything we've seen that suggests otherwise is experimenter bias heaped on top of experimental error. I'm actually surprised by the sheer lack of people commenting in the more-or-less-perma-LK-99 threads who show skepticism of the results.
- 46Bit 3y agoAgreed. Even the 100K zero-resistance claim isn't holding up to scrutiny https://nitter.net/condensed_the/status/1686895266329174016 https://nitter.net/condensed_the/status/1686895266329174016 https://nitter.net/condensed_the/status/1686901855358427136 https://nitter.net/condensed_the/status/1686901855358427136 https://nitter.net/condensed_the/status/1686832552252784641 https://nitter.net/condensed_the/status/1686832552252784641
- throwawaymaths 3y agoYou're right that this is the worst case scenario, but each interesting replication or semi-replication, even sloppy replication, or theoretical model erodes at that. Being perma-skeptic is as bad as being a perma-fanboy Anyways your memory is really short. Don't you remember how when it first came out (not even a week ago) everyone was hollering that it was fake? Inb4 "extraordinary claims...": there is no fundamental reason for superconductivity in general to be impossible at RT.
- jcranmer 3y ago> You're right that this is the worst case scenario, but each interesting replication or semi-replication, even sloppy replication, or theoretical model erodes at that. Not really. The ur-example of the worst-case scenario is cold fusion, and as we were reminded by somebody [1] early on, is that the first replications of the Fleischmann–Pons experiment were actually successful to some degree. Those initial replications were later retracted when it was found that there was experimental error that could observe the same phenomenon, and other replication attempts were reporting outright failure instead of partial success. > Anyways your memory is really short. Don't you remember how when it first came out (not even a week ago) everyone was hollering that it was fake? Your memory is really short. The first thread was 8 days ago [2], over a week ago. I've just been perusing those comments quickly, and there's very few accusations of it being fake. The dominant sentiment is along the lines of "big, if true" or "please let it be true", and there's only a few top-level comments casting any shade on its plausibility. But the threads since the weekend have largely seemed to cast aside even the limited skepticism once opined. [1] I'd love to credit them, but sorry, trying to dig out which comment out of several hundred splayed out across the various early threads was the one I remembered is more work than I can devote at the time. Edit: credit is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36884183 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36884183, thanks to segfaultbuserr for finding the link. [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36864624 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36864624
- s0rce 3y agoMost papers are so bad its nearly impossible to replicate the synthesis.
- adrian_b 3y agoNot this one, which has a very detailed description of the synthesis, including what has worked and what has failed.
- fnordpiglet 3y agoI’d note they claimed to try the synthesis over 1000 times to arrive at their best sample. They admit to not being physicists and being more experimental chemists. If there is anything here, which at minimum seems they’ve found something interesting. The theoretic research published recently supporting their claims coupled with the discussion that the apparently superconducting material is less likely to form it’s probably (IMO, IANAP) a process that requires substantial refinement but holds a claimed experimental and theoretically demonstrated potential to be a room temperature normal pressure superconductor as claimed. There seems to be a lot of “their work is sloppy” and “their method isn’t refined” as a proof of a negative, but it’s just proof that science is done in many ways by many techniques and no one is sufficient, but everyone is necessary.
- kuprel 3y agoWhy don't they just share the original sample? At least it could offer an existence proof
- xvector 3y agoThe probability of being able to reproduce this is unknown, there's no reason it couldn't be one in millions. If the original sample breaks in transit or experimentation we may have lost the only example of a room temp superconductor ever seen.
- WillPostForFood 3y agoInvite some scientists and journalists to the lab to observe it?
- WindyLakeReturn 3y agoI think they have done that. The catch is that these scientists are likely to take their time, because they want to produce something with weight behind it. This isn't lab #5234's attempt to reproduce it which showed some weird behavior that might be a success, this is the expert report on the original material giving second opinion on how valid the first's claim is. That needs to have more care, which means more thoroughness doing the research and more time spent writing up the final result with care. If lab #5234's attempt ends up being a false positive or experimental error, it will be one of many and won't mean much, but if this particular report is wrong or has a major error, that is going to be impactful in a negative way.
- adrian_b 3y agoWhile the production method of the original Korean authors is poorly documented, the synthesis method used for this paper is described in a very detailed way, also mentioning a few alternative steps that have been tried, but which caused failures in obtaining the desired structure. While their synthesis method works very well for something improvised in a couple of days, it requires significant improvements, because the samples are very inhomogeneous, which greatly complicates the measurements and the interpretation of the results. I believe that the properties of this material will not be completely elucidated until someone grows a monocrystal of it, but developing a process for this might take months, if not years.
- jjallen 3y agoWhat is this supposed to be a summary of? The temperature at which this team observed zero resistivity was much much colder than room temp.
- reacharavindh 3y agoWith my conspiracy theory hat on, perhaps the authors were encouraged/coerced to not release proper documentation to reproduce the recipe entirely by [their bosses, state agencies etc.] If the claims are true, then the implications to defense, weaponry and such are very high, and the C|N|D* agencies like to not lose their cards in the game.. /conspiracy Or Real science is just darned difficult, and the scientists are working hard to reproduce the results themselves. Which is more likely.
- _ph_ 3y agoRight. From my own experience, growing crystals is close to alchemy. Of course we know exactly how to do it, yet, it takes a lot of skill to grow a lot of substances. There are a lot of detaills to the process which are difficult to capture in documentation, even if the best faith attempts are made. Add to that any variation in the machinery used. As a consequence, it is quite common in crytallography that there is a single source for certain crytals. At least in an initial phase. If a substance becomes reasonably popular, eventually more people manage to produce quality crystals. So I would expect eventually good samples to turn up elsewhere as many groups are working on this, but it can take a lot of time. Especially as no one knows what exactly was different about the Korean samples.
- sampo 3y ago> The production method is so poorly documented only a fraction of the samples being made shows any interesting properties. I have understood that rather, the production method is poorly known even to the Koreans themselves, and also they have only a small success rate in their samples. So it's more that the Koreans themselves are not entirely sure what "makes it click", and you can't document it well because you don't yourself know all the details.
- TylerE 3y agoWould a ~200K superconductor be useful, if such a beast exists? Obviously not as good as room temp, but at least that's a temp you can maintain with dry ice and not liquid nitrogen.