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Electronic Structure of LK-99

arxiv.org

121–130 of 448 posts

Re: Electronic Structure of LK-99

#121
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More people saying it sounds feasibly like it could be a superconductor is great, but agreed - https://nitter.net/MichaelSFuhrer/status/1686267690770739200 and similar threads by actual experts in the field have outlined that DFT studies ignore a lot of variables that need to line up for superconductivity, in harsh contrast to techbros on Twitter claiming they're proof of the next thousand year golden era.

Yeah the techbros have been the worst. Coffee guy went from saying the first DFT paper should deserve a Nobel to, "it's not a strong signal of anything" in 12 hours. WTF. All the actual scientists have been rock steady at, "it is probably not going to replicate," especially CMTC. Techbro speculation on physics should be considered harmful.

>All the actual scientists have been rock steady at, "it is probably not going to replicate," especially CMTC.

Sinéad Griffin isn't an actual scientist?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin%C3%A9ad_Griffin

Plenty of real scientists are excited by the DFT results while cautioning they are merely supporting evidence and not conclusive evidence.

Re: Electronic Structure of LK-99

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These Cu d-d interactions right at the fermi energy give me huge hope. Feels very familiar to other superconductors (re: all the cuprates). As someone who is versed in semiconductor band structures but not superconductor band structures: What is it about Cu d-d interactions that causes the superconductivity? Degenerate energies in semiconductors don't give rise to electron pairing, so I'm a bit out to sea with the…

To be honest, this is a hunch thing more than a I can teach and explain it thing. To me it's just "a lot of the same stories" that are told about cuprates, and less of a "I can explain the mechanism". Roughly, one of the "properties" that shows up with these materials is that the 3d orbitals of coper atoms are involved in forming the bands near the fermi level. Couple that with the fun story of Cu electron configurat…

> To be honest, this is a hunch thing more than a I can teach and explain it thing...

Chiming in, not just you. :) I very briefly studied materials science a few decades ago and I'm 0% surprised that a potential breakthrough involves, of course, cuprates.

Re: Electronic Structure of LK-99

#123
post #112
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I've read it, the first lead to the material was 99. 2018 They got funding to research it further, 2020 was a first attempt of publication at Nature that was retracted, further improvements were made until 22/23 were two patents were filled, then suddenly 10 days ago Kwon, one of the co-researchers jumped the gun publishing a paper with the details, on one hand fearing a leak of someone else publishing first as th…

Kwon is humanities' hero for leaking this knowledge to the world

Ultimately I'm glad that the research has seen the light, since I'm of the personal persuasion that there is no single scrap of science that should ever be done in the dark. All research, in a perfect world, would be entirely public and freely and easily accessible.

With that being said, I'm not sure if leaking a paper and selfishly putting your name on it and excluding others so that you win a Nobel Prize doesn't exactly seem "heroic". Certainly beneficial for mankind, but it seems like a self-serving action.

Re: Electronic Structure of LK-99

#124
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The next breakthrough we need is with fusion technology. With unlimited fusion energy, room temperature superconductivity, and (soon) artificial general intelligence, the singularity won't be long off.

What fusion breakthrough is needed that isn't superconductors?

Computational electrodynamics.

We need to design better geometries for reactors so that we can channel the plasma flow to better improve containment while quickly removing wastes from the highly compressed energetic region where fusion mostly occurs. If we could do that, then that mostly solves the issues from reactor degradation and significantly improves efficiency.

The trouble is that at such high energy levels the plasma flow is relatively chaotic so high fidelity models are required to predict the behavior accurately.

Re: Electronic Structure of LK-99

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These Cu d-d interactions right at the fermi energy give me huge hope. Feels very familiar to other superconductors (re: all the cuprates). As someone who is versed in semiconductor band structures but not superconductor band structures: What is it about Cu d-d interactions that causes the superconductivity? Degenerate energies in semiconductors don't give rise to electron pairing, so I'm a bit out to sea with the…

To be honest, this is a hunch thing more than a I can teach and explain it thing. To me it's just "a lot of the same stories" that are told about cuprates, and less of a "I can explain the mechanism". Roughly, one of the "properties" that shows up with these materials is that the 3d orbitals of coper atoms are involved in forming the bands near the fermi level. Couple that with the fun story of Cu electron configurat…

Very cool explanation, I didn’t understand a word you said

Re: Electronic Structure of LK-99

#126

The material containing lead is very unfortunate. I have no doubts that (if it indeed turns out to be a superconductor) humans will use it anyway in any context where it provides even a slight benefit (cf. just in the lead department: leaded gasoline, leaded solder, etc.).

Lead solder is mostly ok. Arguably lead free solder has been much more damaging for the environment because of all the e-waste it created.

Re: Electronic Structure of LK-99

#127
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so hard not to be crazy excited about the future. The past few months are proving to be an absolute breakout for the literal human race. So far we've seen: 1. in Dec 2022 We saw a fusion breakthrough seeing a net gain in energy 2. In March GPT-4 was released, which seems to be a seminal breakthrough in AI, and maybe of our first glimpse in what could become an AGI. 3. In May we find out apparently our government…

> 3. In May we find out apparently our government has recovered alien technologies This is a silly thing to include on the list since it doesn't seem to be true?

What's up with that uh? I read about the swore statements during the depositions, and all the mainstream media news, but for some reason HN had radio silence.

Is there something I missed that shows it's all shenanigans?

Re: Electronic Structure of LK-99

#128
post #47
post #16

The most interesting phenomenon revealed so far is that the room-temperature superconductor people and the generative-LLMs-are-God people draw on the same limited global pool of credulity, such that HN cannot be flooded with both ChatGPT worship and superconductor speculation at the same time.

The least interesting phenomenon revealed so far is that HN is split into a group who are entertained by watching and discussing emerging tech / science news, and a second group who are entertained by disparaging the first. I enjoy watching floating rocks and talking to computers.

[deleted]

Re: Electronic Structure of LK-99

#129
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the singularity isn't going to implement itself, you know.

The next breakthrough we need is with fusion technology. With unlimited fusion energy, room temperature superconductivity, and (soon) artificial general intelligence, the singularity won't be long off.

Careful with this logic, the same thing could have (and pretty much was) said 50 years ago about fission and microchips.

Re: Electronic Structure of LK-99

#130
post #16

The most interesting phenomenon revealed so far is that the room-temperature superconductor people and the generative-LLMs-are-God people draw on the same limited global pool of credulity, such that HN cannot be flooded with both ChatGPT worship and superconductor speculation at the same time.

As someone strongly in the first camp and not the second, this feels like a very odd observation. I despise generative LLMs and avoid using them at every opportunity. I'm also spending all my free time this week perusing arxiv preprints and Twitter threads. Make of my datum what you will. :)
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