Argonne National Lab LK-99 Superconductor Replication Status

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If reports that Argonne National Lab has completed synthesis of LK-99, proposed room temperature superconductor from South Korean researchers, are correct then characterization information should be released in 1-3 days.

This would be consistent with the expectation that major labs are trying to replicate, falsify and investigate the LK-99 material.

Quotes from the Journal Science

“They come off as real amateurs,” says Michael Norman, a theorist at Argonne National Laboratory. “They don’t know much about superconductivity and the way they’ve presented some of the data is fishy.” On the other hand, he says, researchers at Argonne and elsewhere are already trying to replicate the experiment. “People here are taking it seriously and trying to grow this stuff.” Nadya Mason, a condensed matter physicist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign says, “I appreciate that the authors took appropriate data and were clear about their fabrication techniques.” Still, she cautions, “The data seems a bit sloppy.”

The general public seems oddly pumped about how ‘easy’ the 4-day, multistep, small batch, solid state synthesis is,” Jennifer Fowlie, a condensed matter physicist at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, quipped on Twitter. “Some of you haven’t had blisters from overusing your pestle and it shows.” Nevertheless, physicists will put the claim to the test very quickly, Norman predicts: “If this is real, we’ll know within a week.”

Michael Norman, a theorist at Argonne National Laboratory, said we will know within a week in a July 27, 2023 Journal Science article. This means the end of the day of August 2nd, 2023 or earlier (IF the within a week estimate is correct).

18 thoughts on “Argonne National Lab LK-99 Superconductor Replication Status”

  1. One week is a theorist’ prediction :). It would take much longer to verify the superconductivity part.

  2. Remember,if it would work they would not want you to know and would form some major smear campaign like…

  4. “Is is a hoax or not?”

    I don’t think hoax is the right word, but desperation. I came across an article that these 2 were desperately trying to do something for there recently passed professor (or something like that).

    As of early morning hours Tuesday in SWUSA no govt or amateur labs have confirmed.

    • Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China now claim to have at least partially replicated the results. They don’t know yet if it’s a super conductor but the results so far don’t contradict the claim.

  5. Rather conveniently, there seems to be videos popping up on how to make your own planetary ball mill for DIY use…

  6. Not impressed with the attitude of the smug pr1cks deprecating the discovery. Twats!

  8. So far several labs have replicated what’s shown in the original data… The problem is the original data does *not* show a superconductor. It shows a conductor (resistance 2 to 5 orders of magnitude too high to be a superconductor) with weak diamagnetic properties but no Meissner Effect field expulsion.

    Several labs have gotten the same result, one lab did additional testing and found semiconductor properties (which does not preclude superconductivity but adds a lot of complications and explains the observations without superconductivity).

    Consistency in results is a good sign that the results are on the right track, even if that track is disappointing.

    • I saw a comment that the original team is only getting about 1 in 10 samples to work. If that is true, then the 9 out of 10 failures should look like a pretty consistent “nope”.

      I’m still hopeful for a success, but I’m getting the picture that it’s not going to be as easy as it initially appeared.

  9. Not so interested in replication efforts since there may be many subtleties missed. Much more interested in independent testing of samples provided by original lab.

  10. If this is real we should just throw another log on the time machine, safari to Thursday evening and have a look-see.

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