this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023

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Superconductor Breakthrough Replicated, Twice, in Preliminary Testing (www.tomshardware.com)

submitted 3 years ago by L4s@lemmy.world [M, B] to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Superconductor Breakthrough Replicated, Twice, in Preliminary Testing::It's been a rough few days in the condensed matter physics realm following claims of the world's first room-temperature superconductor being achieved. However, work to verify and replicate the results

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[–] dbilitated@aussie.zone 56 points 3 years ago* (3 children)

wait, really? other people have confirmed this might be real? I'm not sure i'm ready for that.. i don't dare hope, you know?

but also, if another unrelated team has demonstrated room-temp Meissner effect, that means this might be true, right?

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[–] astropenguin5@lemmy.world 43 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (2 children)

From reading through the article and it's sources, here's what seems to be the case:

a simulation at Berkely National Labs with their supercomputing capabilities has verified that LK-99 theoretically has superconducting properties
Argonne National Labs also seems to be involved and doing stuff, but nothing official from them yet, besides maybe helping with simulation stuff
a Russian scientist is working on improving the synthesis process and has made some low purity samples that produce the Messnier effect, but higher purity than the original I think. It's all from Twitter (x) threads and a little hard to follow. Her handle is @iris_IGB
China National Lab (Shenyang) first principles analysis suggest gold and silver doping LK-99 will make superconductors as well. [Directly copied from article]
Under the guidance of Professor Chang Haixin, postdoctoral Wu Hao and doctoral student Yang Li of the School of Materials Science and Technology of Huazhong University of Science and Technology they have successfully verified and synthesized the LK-99 crystal. It can be magnetically levitated for the first time and this is shown on a bilibili video. They expect to realize the true sense of non-contact superconducting magnetic levitation. [Also Directly copied from article]

Direct source for last 2 points and also more info in general

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/07/tracking-lk-99-superconductor-replication-efforts.html

I would say with 95 percent confidence that: it's real bois!

A few caveats however: according to the simulation, the conductive pathways only forms when the copper bonds to a specific higher-energy spot in the crystal, so getting higher purities will likely need a fair amount of innovation on the production process. There are some other complications with the synthesis, so even if it is fully and properly confirmed with more papers and such it will still likely be a while before it can start to be used effectively.

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[–] dbilitated@aussie.zone 5 points 3 years ago (2 children)

thank you!

this almost seems like it could be something 😬

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[–] Serinus@lemmy.world 11 points 3 years ago (1 child)

No, not really. You can tell by his "95% confidence" quip where he tries to make his opinion sound scientific.

I hope this works, but there's more reason to be skeptical than positive. There have been an awful lot of replication failures.

Wait until it's reproduced somewhere outside of a simulation or China. People are working on it, because if one in a hundred of these seemingly bogus claims turns out to be true, the 99 wasted efforts will still have been worth it.

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[+] faintbeep@lemm.ee 6 points 3 years ago

[deleted]

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[–] astropenguin5@lemmy.world 10 points 3 years ago

Yep, imo it seems like this is just the first step of room temperature superconductors, there is LOTS of room for improvement, even if LK-99 itself isn't useful for anything real-world I think it at the very least is a jumping-off point for innovation on the concept, and finding more compounds that have similar properties

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[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 1 point 3 years ago

Thanks for this analysis!

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[+] faintbeep@lemm.ee 17 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

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[–] Heywoods@lemmy.world 9 points 3 years ago (2 children)

A university today has successfully replicated and proven 0 resistance. Still a ways to go before a viable commercially available version is developed.

https://twitter.com/lipez400/status/1686793608626663441

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[–] Noughmad@programming.dev 7 points 3 years ago

Below 110K. That's still at least 160K away from room temperature.

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[–] player2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 3 years ago*

Thanks for the link. It's worth noting that they achieved that at temperatures below 110 Kelvin, and the big breakthrough would be doing the same at room temperature and pressure.

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[–] Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 14 points 3 years ago (2 children)

There was an article yesterday of a team not being able to replicate it, so now I'm confused.

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[–] dbilitated@aussie.zone 42 points 3 years ago (1 child)

According to the simulation apparently it only works if the copper atoms end up in an unlikely place in the crystal, so fabrication might be unreliable. I recall someone in another thread saying the authors themselves had around a 10% success rate. So other efforts to replicate are likely to see more failures until the fabrication is better understood. Makes sense I guess.

The fact that another team saw something I think is really hopeful, even if it's hard to produce and poorly understood, if there is a room-temp effect then it's only a matter of time before it's studied properly and understood. From there hopefully a reliable method of fabrication can be published.

If there is no effect replicated anywhere then the paper is fraud, but if there's any effect replicated then it's just a matter of study and engineering to figure out what it is. It would be interesting even if it isn't exactly room temp superconductivity.

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[–] Roberto@toast.ooo 3 points 3 years ago (1 child)

I understood these were just simulations, no real material produced whatsoever.

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[–] dbilitated@aussie.zone 8 points 3 years ago (1 child)

Berkley one is simulation, one is a chinese lab that seems to have replicated some of the actual material and confirmed some properties of superconductivity.

someone is tracking a lot of different efforts here: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/07/tracking-lk-99-superconductor-replication-efforts.html

wow

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[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 3 years ago

It's not yellow. I can't wait for E&F to try this

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[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 13 points 3 years ago

That's how replication works. It really only takes handful of labs being able to replicate to confirm there is a 'there' there. Positive evidence of replication is much stronger than negative evidence.

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