There has been a recent surge in conversations on Chinese social media platforms surrounding room-temperature superconductors. This sudden interest has been spurred by a global wave of scientific endeavors striving to verify the synthesis of a purportedly superconductive material known as the LK-99 crystal. Chinese, American, and Russian research groups have been at the forefront of these initiatives, eagerly replicating experiments and publishing relevant papers following the release of two scientific studies by a South Korean team. This group claims to have uncovered the first-ever room-temperature superconducting material, a significant milestone in the scientific community.
Despite these pioneering revelations, numerous insiders who spoke to the Global Times stressed that the South Korean team’s findings, along with those of the research groups replicating their experiments worldwide, have only demonstrated certain superconductivity properties, such as diamagnetism, within the synthesized samples. They emphasized that although superconductivity is inherently diamagnetic, possessing this trait does not necessarily mean that a material is superconducting.
A prevailing viewpoint among these insiders is that even if superconductivity at room temperature is eventually achieved, the road to its practical application is long and fraught with challenges. They predict that it may take many decades before this scientific breakthrough can be harnessed for meaningful technological advancements.
On a Tuesday, not long ago, a Chinese experimental team uploaded a video on Bilibili, a popular video sharing platform. They claimed to have successfully verified the synthesis of a LK-99 crystal, which exhibited magnetic levitation capabilities for the first time. The team highlighted that their crystal demonstrated a larger levitation angle compared to the sample previously obtained by the South Korean researchers. This evolution in magnetic levitation technology is expected to significantly augment the practical application of non-contact superconducting magnetic levitation.
Leading the Chinese team is Professor Chang Haixin from Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Professor Chang, alongside postdoctoral researcher Wu Hao and doctoral student Yang Li, confirmed to the Chinese media outlet cls.cn that the uploaded video was indeed produced by their team. As of press time, this video has been viewed over seven million times, highlighting the public’s interest in this revolutionary field of study.
However, the team’s video also elucidated that they have only managed to verify the Meissner effect thus far. Despite the crystal exhibiting diamagnetic properties, it is relatively weak and lacks “zero resistance.” Its overall performance mimics that of a semiconductor curve, suggesting that even if LK-99 possesses superconducting properties, they are likely only present in minuscule amounts of superconducting impurities and thus incapable of forming a continuous superconducting pathway.
The South Korean team that first claimed to have discovered a room-temperature superconductive material attracted international attention with their research. They shared two scientific papers on the pre-print server arXiv, stating that the material they synthesized, mainly a modified perovskite crystal structure known as LK-99, is a type of lead phosphate with copper doping.
Their findings have, however, faced widespread skepticism due to insufficient experimental data to conclusively prove that LK-99 is a superconductor. In response to these claims, multiple research teams worldwide have taken up the challenge to synthesize LK-99 and verify the South Korean team’s experimental results independently.
Yuan Lanfeng, a research fellow at the Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale and the University of Science and Technology of China, conveyed to the Global Times that even if all the results from the South Korean team were accurate, they would only validate that the material has some degree of magnetic resistance. According to Yuan, this does not necessarily imply the presence of superconductivity.
Yuan further noted that the replications of this experiment by both China and Russia share a common shortcoming with the South Korean one: there is a lack of robust evidence that proves the material is indeed superconducting.
Adding to the conversation, Zheng Dongdong, an assistant professor at the School of Automation, Beijing Institute of Technology, echoed Yuan’s sentiments. He told the Global Times that so far, the experiment samples have only demonstrated some properties of superconductivity, such as diamagnetism. Zheng clarified that superconductivity, by definition, implies that a material’s resistance is zero.
Zheng expressed that realizing room-temperature superconductivity – which would negate the need for additional refrigeration equipment to maintain low temperatures – would greatly broaden its application prospects. The realization of room-temperature superconductivity would revolutionize long-distance power transmission, enabling lossless power transfer and potentially sparking a new era in global infrastructure development for electricity networks. Moreover, breakthroughs in this field could catalyze advancements in superconducting magnets, superconducting cables, and superconducting maglev trains.
Yuan ended with a call to arms for international collaboration in the field of superconductivity research, emphasizing the significance of joint efforts to accelerate progress in this pioneering field of scientific inquiry.
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