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LK-99: Team of Southeast University observed zero resistance below 110 K

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Re: LK-99: Team of Southeast University observed zero resistance below 110 K

#321

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

caturopath wrote: post #286
selestify wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the original hype around LK-99 was that it was supposed to be easy to manufacture with materials most labs have on hand? E.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36865106

- It was naive to think a simple recipe was going to play out with everyone getting what they wanted easily when they tried to follow it. - It's still a huge deal if the manufacturing is as easy as it appears to be, even if most of the replication attempts aren't getting _quite_ the right thing. It's hilarious if room temperature superconductors were always "Put these two things in a lucifer furnace and roll a die" a…

> It's hilarious if room temperature superconductors were always "Put these two things in a lucifer furnace and roll a die" away.

Is it, though? I mean it's hilarious sure but if we were to draw parallels to the mother of all elements, the celestial furnaces in the sky, it seems less wild.

A pretty lucky roll of the die nonetheless.

Re: LK-99: Team of Southeast University observed zero resistance below 110 K

#322

Post by elcritch »

ramesh31 wrote: post #163
modeless wrote: post #121

To me this is encouraging. 110K is really high! It's higher than YBCO which is what they make commercial "high temperature" superconducting tape out of. IMO if this is legit (I have no way of judging the source) then this is the first good third party evidence that the original researchers are not just doing some kind of fraud. A total fraud wouldn't have actually discovered a novel high-temperature, but not room tem…

>At worst it seems to me like they discovered a cool new superconductor that may have commercial applications. At best, they may have a variant of this material that really is a room temperature superconductor. Either way, there is an important scientific discovery here. I feel like this whole thing is going to be graphene all over again. A massive initial hype around "world changing tech" that ends up being very dif…

My guess would be that it'd be similar to silicon wafer production and just require lots work to industrialize the process and hone production. Graphene is just particularly difficult due to its 2-d nature, but lk-99 looks to a regular crystalline structure.

Re: LK-99: Team of Southeast University observed zero resistance below 110 K

#324

Post by alephnerd »

jeremiahbuckley wrote: post #294
alephnerd wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the name of this book? It sounds really cool! Any other recommendations on books about the history of MatSE/Chemistry?

Oh man, you are in for a treat! This was a terrific read even though I probably only understood 1/3rd of it. Ignition! By John D. Clark https://www.amazon.com/Ignition-audiobook/dp/B07CTW1M9D/ref=... Or, maybe you’ve already read it, in which case: great job. Maybe someone else will see this comment and enjoy it. I don’t want to spoil if for you, but I loved the last paragraph. I believe a new heroic age for the fiel…

Oh dang! This has been on my reading list for years! Definetly looking forward to checking it out!!!

Re: LK-99: Team of Southeast University observed zero resistance below 110 K

#325

Post by seewhydee »

fgeahfeaha wrote: post #15

That's a failed repro then right? Below 110K is below -163.15 Celcius How would that compare to other superconductors?

Yeah it looks to me like either a replication failure or even evidence AGAINST a superconducting phase. A superconductor's resistance curve is supposed to show a sharp drop to zero at the transition temperature. If it's a dirty inhomogenous sample (e.g. specks of superconductor embedded in non-superconducting material), you get a kink where the curve descends to a non-zero background resistance. In the Southeast University data, there's a smooth curve that goes down until they get to the noise floor. There's no transition.

Re: LK-99: Team of Southeast University observed zero resistance below 110 K

#326

Post by klimt »

floxy wrote: post #285
klimt wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YBCO which has a critical temperature of around 90K has a critical field in excess of 250T. So 9T is not expected to weaken superconductivity much for a sample with a critical temperature of 110K.

Wow 250T is pretty high. Was that measured or extrapolated?

Extrapolated.

Re: LK-99: Team of Southeast University observed zero resistance below 110 K

#327

Post by neltnerb »

selestify wrote: post #283
CitizenKane wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is apparently extremely difficult to fabricate LK-99 and most of the time the process being used creates similar substances but without appropriate Cu substitution in its lattice. All of the videos have been of generally quite small samples and the manufacturing difficulty is the purported reason. The SK also supposedly had more details on this but with the leak of the paper those haven't been cleaned up and added…

I thought the original hype around LK-99 was that it was supposed to be easy to manufacture with materials most labs have on hand? E.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36865106

Amusingly, some friends asked me about it shortly after the original announcement. I'm not a superconductor person, but I am a materials person.

My response was, basically, the biggest risk (after toxicity) "is that they got lucky and there are subtle things they did that aren't in the recipe which will turn out to have been critical."

I've done a lot of materials research. It's pretty likely that they got lucky on a small percentage of the samples and spent years trying to figure out what on earth was different. I am excited that 10,000 other labs will stand a very good chance of finding out.

Re: LK-99: Team of Southeast University observed zero resistance below 110 K

#328

Post by whimsicalism »

throwanem wrote: post #221
carabiner wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I mean why is this "huge" when each time that's happened it's been deflated within 12 hours: - initial LK-99 paper upload on Arxiv: HUGE, then it's probably nothing until replication (waiting) - DFT release: HUGE, then probably nothing (DFT has poor predictive power) - 110K SC: HUGE, then ... ? In every case it's been the laymen saying HUGE, then the experts saying it's probably insignificant. Then the laymen sett…

Derek Lowe is a layman? I grant his specialism doesn't precisely match the field, but it's easily close enough I'd expect him to be able to smell bullshit on this if there was any, and his latest "In the Pipeline" suggests much more the scent of roses.

Derek Lowe is saying 'this is maybe possible', commentators on Hacker News are saying 'this is practically a done deal, and here are the implications'

Re: LK-99: Team of Southeast University observed zero resistance below 110 K

#329

Post by whimsicalism »

baq wrote: post #17
zootreeves wrote: post #10

Why would other teams be observing floating at room temp? Is it possible to have a diamagnet that becomes a superconductor?

It’s possible there are tiny bits of superconducting stuff at room temperature which connect into bigger and bigger bits as temperature drops, until it starts working as a whole at 110K. Maybe. Don’t quote me.

what? give me an effective field theory for that lol because that is not a thing
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