from Hacker News

Absence of superconductivity in LK-99 at ambient conditions

by spekcular on 8/8/23, 1:12 AM with 75 comments

  • by TillE on 8/8/23, 1:51 AM

    This isn't a particularly meaningful paper because they failed to produce any kind of partial levitation.

    This one which finds substantial ferromagnetism and minimal diamagnetism is a far better reason to doubt that LK-99 is a superconductor:

    https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.03110

    Still very inconclusive because the synthesis is difficult and messy and nobody knows precisely what materials they're analyzing, but I've adjusted from cautious optimism to mostly resigned pessimism.

  • by kappi on 8/8/23, 2:05 AM

    https://twitter.com/floates0x/status/1688727233521979392 NEW and IMPORTANT : Study performed at Lanzhou University heavily indicate that successful synthesis of the LK-99 superconductor requires annealing in an oxygen atmosphere. They are suggesting that the final synthesis occurs in an oxygen atmosphere rather than in vacuum.

    The original three author LK99 paper and nearly every subsequent attempt at replication involved annealing in the suggested vacuum of 10^-3 torr.

    This paper indicates that the superconductivity aspects of the material are greatly enhanced if heated in normal atmosphere.

    Authors are Kun Tao, Rongrong Chen, Lei Yang, Jin Gao, Desheng Xue and Chenglong Jia, all from aforementioned Lanzhou University

    Paper is available here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.03218

  • by nntwozz on 8/8/23, 4:37 AM

    Asianometry recently released a video on the history of superconductors:

    https://youtu.be/wUczYHyOhLM

    The research field is apparently fraught with failures.

    The video is a great primer on the subject and tones down all the hype when looking back at previous breakthroughs.

  • by kappi on 8/8/23, 1:54 AM

  • by soligern on 8/8/23, 1:51 AM

    Now I don’t know what to believe.

  • by fnord77 on 8/8/23, 1:53 AM

    I think we'll eventually discover superconductivity isn't possible at STP

  • by behnamoh on 8/8/23, 2:19 AM

    There's no such thing as bad publicity; how about in science? If the original paper is proved wrong, how on earth could the original authors get any job and respect from their academic colleagues?

  • by xqcgrek2 on 8/8/23, 2:09 AM

    At this point, profit off the morons still clinging to the hype in the betting markets and move on.

    I guarantee some people will be clinging to claims that LK-99 was a superconductor even 5 years from now, just like the cold fusion crowd that still exists.