Disclaimer: I’m not a materials scientist. I may update this over time as I collate more information
Updated 2023-07-31 – Spacebattles table (11 online replication efforts)
On 22 July 2023, two mysterious papers were suddenly published in arxiv.org – this is a website of scientific papers that is often the first step to peer-reviewed publication, but it’s not a total confirmation. They were published about two hours apart – the first one, with three authors credited, claims to have created the world’s first room-temperature-and-pressure (RTP) superconductor.
This first paper is short and appears to be hastily written, and has three authors attached: Sukbae Lee, Ji-Hoon Kim, Young-Wan Kwon.
The second paper is much more detailed, though there are some signs it that was still pushed out a bit quickly. However, even more curiously, it has six authors: Sukbae Lee, Jihoon Kim, Hyun-Tak Kim, Sungyeon Im, SooMin An, and Keun Ho Auh. The third author of the first paper is removed from the second.
The purported properties of the material labeled “LK-99” are incredible. Originally synthesised in 1999, not only is it RTP, but the critical temperature is actually 127°C – above the boiling temperature of water. The synthesis method is also shockingly simple: Finely grind and mix Lanarkite (Pb2(SO4)O) and Copper Phosphide (Cu3P) and bake it at 925°C in a vacuum chamber for a day. The ability to discover and synthesise it has theoretically been available since the industrial revolution. Now, one should be able to do it in a garage or home lab.
The reaction online is a rapid mix of skepticism and curiosity. Fraudulent claims have occurred before – the previous one claimed it required 10,000 atm, as a deliberate delay to independent verification. That doesn’t exist here. The authorship is also curious: The main authors are experts in superconductivity and magnetic research. It is widely noted that only a maximum of three people can recieve a Nobel Prize. Was the first paper a deliberate attempt to flag themselves as the finders?
Young-Wan Kwon, the removed author from the first paper, crashes a science conference several days later and talks about the discovery. He couldn’t demonstrate a sample, and was apparently expelled from the science group months ago. Is this a sign of treachery? In-fighting for credit? It makes the whole thing pass the sniff test. Many of us may not believe it yet, but they certainly do. What else could make an expert behave like that?
As I begin writing this post on 30 July, the live reaction – and attempts to replicate it – has been developing day-by-day on the scientific community on Twitter. A space engineering startup in the Los Angeles area coincidentally has all the tools on-hand and available, and quickly orders the materials and blogs about the day-by-day progress of synthesis. A Korean user fluent in English begins translating news from Korean newspapers and internet forums. A Chinese user does the same for Chinese social media. Scientists who maintain an online presence begin explaining the implications and dissect the paper. Someone begins compiling key figures acting as information sources across language barriers.
The magic of room-temperature superconductors is something that shows up in sci-fi, and is easily understood at the high-school physics level. But having most of these ongoing news break on Twitter… well, I’m not a heavy user of Twitter, but I never quite figured out a good way to track an event after it has occured. It’s very good for a live feed, but it gets rather scattered if you’re trying to catch up. This post is just my way of making sense of the key opening events.
Is it nothing? Is it less than expected? At the very least, there’s a lot of buzz right now. At the very least, I might stick additional events in chronological order below the next couple of separator lines.
What’s the Big Deal?
If you need a quick high-school physics primer, here’s the deal:
A superconductor is an electrical conductor with zero resistance. It was first discovered when it was found that resistance drops with temperature, and for some reason, instead of dropping in a curve, some materials immediately drop to zero resistance when they pass a certain point, called the ‘critical temperature’. Zero resistance means that no heat is generated when electricity passes through; in other words, the wire is 100% efficient and energy is not lost over distance, and there’s no heat generation at super-high voltages. The caveat is that the temperature for most of these needs to be way below -200°C. You still need to spend a lot of energy keeping it cool, but the heat doesn’t come from the electricity.
The general result is that any device using superconducting material – such as MRI machines – are bulky and immobile, due to the constant need for cryogenics. A room-temperature superconductor allows for things like an infinitely long power cable without loss, or a portable MRI scanner.
A Rough History of Original Synthesis to the Paper
Based on the investigation by this user, Sukbae Lee and
