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Good guy, another breakthrough in the field of room temperature superconductivity?
This time, even high pressure is not needed, and superconductivity can be achieved at "normal pressure".
Just in the past two days, a paper titled "The First Room Temperature and Normal Pressure Superconductor" appeared on arXiv, which immediately triggered a huge discussion.
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The paper shows that by modifying a lead-apatite structure, replacing lead ions with copper ions, stress is generated and distortions are induced in the microstructure, so that superconductivity can be exhibited below 127 °C.
You must know that the room-temperature superconductivity experiment (from Langa Dias) that made a sensation in the academic world a few months ago, was published in Nature and then withdrawn, still needs to be pressurized to 10,000 standard atmospheres, and the critical temperature is much lower than 127°C is 21°C.
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And this latest result, "there are pictures and evidence".
On the one hand, the specific atomic structure of the material is given in the paper;
On the other hand, the author has uploaded a video of a piece of material remaining suspended after being placed on a magnet. This is one of the characteristics of the transformation of an object into a superconductor, the Meissner effect.
And these are things that haven't been seen in previous Dias studies.
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So it's no surprise that this latest paper immediately sparked a huge discussion.
Many people feel that this result is so good that it seems to be fake...
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Some people think that there is even a video this time (unless it is a large-scale scam), which should really be a big breakthrough.
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So... what is this paper about?
Atomic structure and video demonstration given
The first sentence of the thesis reads:
We synthesized the world's first room-temperature and atmospheric-pressure superconductor with a critical temperature of 127°C. For the first time in the world, we succeeded in synthesizing the room-temperature superconductor (Tc ≥ 400 K, 127 ℃) working at ambient pressure with a modified lead-apatite (LK-99) structure.
You should know that for the so-called high-temperature superconductivity, "high temperature" is only relative to absolute zero.
Previously, the realization of room temperature superconductivity at 21°C has exploded the physics community, but now the critical value of 127°C has greatly expanded the scope of superconductivity.
The material that brought new breakthroughs was named "LK-99" by the researchers.
The thesis has 22 pages in total, mainly talking about the structure of the material, the principle of superconductivity, and using experiments to demonstrate.
The paper shows what LK-99 looks like and its molecular structure.
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The researchers achieved superconductivity by shrinking the material's internal structure, replacing the lead ions with smaller copper ions, with a shrinkage ratio of 0.48%.
The stress induced by the Cu2+ substitution is transmitted to the lead in the column of cylinders, causing the interface to twist and form a superconducting quantum well.
Superconducting Quantum Well (Superconducting Quantum Well, referred to as SQW) is an artificially prepared thin film nanostructure, which uses the quantum confinement effect to generate quantized energy levels, thereby increasing the superconducting transition temperature.
Then, through heat capacity experiments, the researchers verified that LK-99 has the ability to superconduct at room temperature and pressure.
Specifically, they conducted experiments at 389K (about 125°C), and the voltage was equal to 0, so it was considered that the resistance was equal to 0 under this condition.
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The author also tested the zero-resistance effect of the sample, the relationship between critical current and magnetic field, etc., to demonstrate that LK-99 has superconductivity.
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In addition, they also showed the results of electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy of LK-99 samples at different temperatures.
The results show that a signal similar to cyclotron resonance appears in the whole temperature range, which is a characteristic signal of a two-dimensional electron gas quantum well.
The authors believe that the presence of signals in the full temperature range means that the quantum wells can exist stably.
And this is the key to LK-99's superconductivity.
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Moreover, they believe that the heat capacity results show that LK-99 does not follow the simple Debye model and has an abnormal heat capacity, which can also prove that the material has superconductivity from a microscopic point of view.
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Not only that, but the author also specially uploaded a video to the Internet, photographing the material levitating on the magnet.
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But this doesn't seem to be able to completely dispel the doubts of the onlookers...
Netizens want to believe it but can't believe it
Because there were too many farces in the field of room temperature superconductivity before, netizens are more cautious this time.
Many people commented with the premise that if it is true (If true)...
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For this new achievement, different netizens also have different opinions.
Some people feel that this experiment has indeed opened up new ideas. Although it has not brought practical applications, the innovation of the research cannot be ignored:
Room temperature superconductivity was not discovered until around 2020, and it is now certain that this path will work!
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But some people also think that the application is relatively limited. This netizen directly said:
The maximum passable current of 250 mA is still relatively limited, and it is far from reaching the practical high current scale.
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You must know that the ability to manufacture powerful magnet materials or feasible power lines is a truly epoch-making achievement in the field of room temperature superconductivity.
In addition to the pros and cons, many netizens also hold a cautious attitude as a whole, questioning whether there is anything tricky about this.
Since there were too many oolongs in this field before, this old man who already had ptsd directly said: Come again? ?
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There are also many netizens who believe that for this kind of research, it is best to wait for the recurrence.
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(Netizen OS: I have been cheated too many times)
However, some people say that one of the authors of the study has published many articles and has high citations.
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The research team for this paper is all from South Korea, and they are all connected to the Quantum Energy Research Center (Quantum Energy Research Center) in South Korea.
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Among them, the author of the paper, Young-Wan Kwon, is a professor at Korea University. His main research fields include condensed matter physics and advanced materials.
On Google Scholar, he has several papers that have been cited more than 100 times.
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Sukbae Lee, the first author of the paper, is the CEO and researcher of the Quantum Energy Research Center. He has been engaged in physics research for a long time, especially in high-temperature superconductivity. However, because most of the published papers are in Korean, the number of citations is relatively small.
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Ji-Hoon Kim is a researcher at the Quantum Energy Research Center, mainly as the corresponding author of the sample synthesis work, and obtained the LK-99 sample through the study of the reaction mechanism.
This paper has attracted a lot of attention in the industry, but whether the specific effect is the same as that described in the paper, we have to wait for a while.
While waiting, Brother Dias, who was madly withdrawn before, has something new to eat.
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One More Thing
In the latest news, another paper by Ranga Dias, the protagonist of the previous room-temperature superconducting storm, will be withdrawn, and there is evidence that there is fraud in the paper.
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According to Nature, Dias's paper published in Physical Review Letters (Physical Review Letters, PRL) will be withdrawn due to the obvious fabrication of data.
"PRL" belongs to the American Physical Society, and mainly publishes original and extremely important physics research results, known as the ruler in the field of physics.
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However, although some papers were withdrawn again, Dias did not panic and continued to make trouble.
According to Science, Dias has recently applied for a patent for a new room-temperature superconducting material.
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Unlike the near-atmospheric pressure (about 10,000 atmospheres) room-temperature superconducting material he published in March this year, this time he claimed in the patent application that he had discovered room-temperature superconducting in a normal-pressure environment. And declared in the patent application:
It is a full sense of room temperature and pressure superconductivity.
Quite strangely, this international patent application was submitted in July 2022 and was only made public in April this year.
Currently, the patent application is currently pending and patent examination usually takes about 2 years to complete.
Paper address: https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.12008 Author uploaded video: https://sciencecast.org/casts/suc384jly50n
参考链接： [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36864624 [2]https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/159jpz6/the_first_roomtemperature_ambientpressure/ [3]https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02401-2 [4]https://www.science.org/content/article/embattled-physicist-files-patent-unprecedented-ambient-superconductor