[HN Gopher] Researchers say they've replicated LK-99 room temper...
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       Researchers say they've replicated LK-99 room temperature
       superconductor
        
       Author : stevenjgarner
       Score  : 43 points
       Date   : 2024-01-05 16:30 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (thequantuminsider.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (thequantuminsider.com)
        
       | cwillu wrote:
       | "Editor's note: [...] At the risk of being stood up at the altar
       | of the scientific method yet again, and understanding the duty to
       | inform the community, here is a cautious summary of the paper
       | guided by some social media commentary -- along with an earnest
       | hope for peer review and an entreaty to not shoot the messenger
       | even as I hear a round slide into the chamber."
        
         | bnchrch wrote:
         | > entreaty to not shoot the messenger even as I hear a round
         | slide into the chamber
         | 
         | Might be one of the most eloquent ways to say pending
         | verification I've ever read.
        
       | leshokunin wrote:
       | "In summary, while the research offers some indications of room-
       | temperature superconductivity in CSLA, the absence of a complete
       | Meissner effect and direct dc hysteresis observations necessitate
       | a cautious approach to these findings."
        
       | bnchrch wrote:
       | I know everyone is right to be cautious.
       | 
       | And I'm sure some commenters are preparing to be dismissive or
       | dare I say it, smug.
       | 
       | But in the absence of being correct or incorrect, lets just take
       | the time to collectively enjoy dreaming of a better tomorrow.
        
         | MBCook wrote:
         | Even if it doesn't turn out to be correct, we never used to
         | hear about this stuff.
         | 
         | It feels like the fact that people are coming up with things
         | that look enough like promising candidates that it gets
         | discussed is a good sign.
         | 
         | I know it could just be the hype train. Someone got a ton of
         | press for it last year so maybe someone else could too.
         | 
         | I want to believe we're getting close, at least.
        
       | rspoerri wrote:
       | Whats the coolest thing you can imagine that will be possible by
       | Room Temperature Superconductors?
        
         | neom wrote:
         | The changes in imaging technology would be interesting.
         | Personally, I'd love an at-home fMRI.
        
         | dist-epoch wrote:
         | Anti-gravity toys.
        
         | vlovich123 wrote:
         | A freezer that uses almost no energy :D.
         | 
         | But there's lots of applications - computers that are orders of
         | magnitude faster and use way less energy, maglev trains that
         | are orders of magnitude cheaper. Think about how as electronics
         | got cheaper they permeated nearly every aspect to the point
         | that cheapo $20 gadgets probably have a simple microcontroller
         | instead of an analog circuit. Room temperature semiconductors
         | would be a material science breakthrough that would permeate
         | every aspect of our lives within ~40 tears similar to how
         | semiconductors did in the 1960s (assuming we got better and
         | cheaper at manufacturing it at scale which would be the next
         | challenge after confirmation).
         | 
         | That being said, I think it's something we should remain hyper
         | skeptical about as a prior because of the low likelihood and
         | how difficult it is to verify superconductance (because the
         | samples are so small they have to use roundabout techniques to
         | establish it like the Meisner effect that can be confused with
         | other properties because measuring 0 resistance itself is even
         | harder and more error prone).
        
           | rspoerri wrote:
           | is heat exchange greatly improved by superconductors?
        
         | jesuslop wrote:
         | I wonder if RTS enables large scale quantum computing
        
       | dist-epoch wrote:
       | Could you build a CPU from superconducting material, maybe
       | partially, so that it generates much less heat when operating?
        
       | neom wrote:
       | https://arxiv.org/pdf/2401.00999.pdf
       | 
       | Possible Meissner effect near room temperature in copper-
       | substituted lead apatite Hongyang Wang1* , Yao Yao2+ , Ke Shi3 ,
       | Yijing Zhao3 , Hao Wu4 , Zhixing Wu5 , Zhihui Geng6 , Shufeng Ye1
       | , and Ning Chen7 1 Center of Materials Science and
       | Optoelectronics Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering,
       | Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China 2 State Key
       | Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices and Department of
       | Physics, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640,
       | China 3 Beijing 2060 Technology Co., Ltd, Beijing 100084, China 4
       | School of Materials Science and Engineering, Huazhong University
       | of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China 5 Fujian
       | Provincial Key Laboratory of Analysis and Detection Technology
       | for Food safety, College of Chemistry, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou
       | 350108, China 6 School of Engineering, Course of Applied Science,
       | Tokai University, Hiratsuka 2591292, Japan 7 School of Materials
       | Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology
       | Beijing, Beijing 100083, China (Dated: January 3, 2024)
       | 
       | "In summary, the diamagnetism in CSLA has been investigated via
       | both M-T curves and hysteresis M-H loops, which can be observed
       | up to 250 K. Given the ZFC-FC bifurcation at above 300 K, we
       | think there is still great chance to observe room-temperature
       | superconductivity. The signals in our sample are still extremely
       | weak, so we have to devote efforts to further synthesizing
       | scalable samples with more active components."
        
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       (page generated 2024-01-05 23:02 UTC)