Good Indian Researcher Has Improving LK99 Replications Despite Previous Replication Failures

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VPS Awana has been trying for weeks to get a good LK99 replication. He has been in direct contact with the Korean team. He published two arxiv preprints talking about how his previous samples didn’t work.

Synthesis of possible room temperature superconductor LK-99:Pb9Cu(PO4)6O July 31, 2023

Absence of superconductivity in LK-99 at ambient conditions Aug 7, 2023

The report of synthesis of modified Lead apatite (LK-99) with evidence of superconductivity at more than boiling water temperature has steered the whole scientific community. There have been several failures to reproduce superconductivity in LK-99 including partial successes. Here, we have continued our efforts to synthesize phase pure LK-99 with improved precursors. The process has been followed as suggested by Sukbae Lee et. al.,. The phase purity of each precursor is evidenced by Powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) and well fitted by Rietveld refinement. The PXRD confirms the synthesis of phase pure polycrystalline LK-99 with apatite structure. The freshly synthesized sample does not show any signature of superconductivity levitation on a magnet (diamagnetism). The magnetization measurements on SQUID also show that LK-99 is diamagnetic at 280 K, there is no sign of superconductivity in LK-99 at room temperature. Moreover, we have also performed first principle calculations to investigate the electronic band structure of the LK-99 near Fermi level. Our study verifies that the Cu doped lead apatite (LK-99) has bands crossing at Fermi level, indicating generation of strong correlation in the system.

Their first principal studies support the mechanisms proposed by H. T. Kim, i.e., doping of Cu atoms at Pb site enhances the electronic correlations in LK-99. (from the August 7, 2023 paper). Their new results are improved.

It is good that someone is making a solid attempt at making LK99 work experimentally. Someone who can fail multiple times and have a friendly talk to give the original researchers a fair hearing. The assumption is that it is a difficult process to replicate but they will trying for more than 1-2 weeks to make it work and they took up the Korean offer of assistance in replication.

Shockingly, trying to make it better with persistence has better results. The continued open minded repeated effort is getting vastly improving results. There are continued positive theoretical avenues for improved results from other labs. They can add more oxygen, adjust the copper configuration and try adding gold or silver instead.

Nextbigfuture looks forward to continued efforts and new improving preprint results from VPS Awana.

The original korean researchers need to provide a high quality paper, which they say will take til the end of the month or next month. They have shared original samples with other researchers. The other researchers need to provide bullet proof high quality analysis to change the opinion of most of the scientists and observers.

Researchers need to make multiple attempts with the chemical vapor deposition process. The thin film chemical vapor deposition process for LK99 is the only one that the original team said had superconducting resistance.

Russian DFT (density function theory) analysis joins other simulation papers that claim there could be ways to do things with extra oxygen that could have superconductivity.

9 thoughts on “Good Indian Researcher Has Improving LK99 Replications Despite Previous Replication Failures”

  1. Why can’t the Korean university invite scientists from around the world, let them take measurement of their sample and verify their lab? That way there’ll be way less suspicion and doubts about integrity of research.

  2. If this is correct, for which I’m highly skeptical, what is actually a real world uses for this outside of the lab and some very niches products. The internet has gone crazy on this for what will have little of any real work implications

  3. The writter of this blog is so naive it is comic.

    So, instead of real measurements, i guess the standard of superconductivity is now a piece of metal stuck to a magnet. Fine by me.

    Thank you for the disservice to the people that do this kind of science seriously for a living.

  4. It is really very strange that no experimental scientist doing superconductivity has not checked yet with a “dynamic” magnetic measurement such as the low field ac magnetic susceptibility. You can see if really there is a critical temperature transition with the real part of the χ’ becoming negative whereas the imaginary part χ” (the out of phase component) indicating a small peak- maximum.
    Resistivity measurements would not actually work if the sample is a mixture of superconducting grains placed in a not superconducting grains mattrix.
    So the right tool to check if there is really superconducting state grains would be to check χac. Very very simple.
    In case is only diamagnetism the the main signal would be only from the imaginary part and not from the real part of χac.

  5. That multimeter has nowhere near the precision to measure a superconductor. You’d want a 4-wire setup with a 6.5digit benchtop multimeter, not a handheld Fluke. I doubt it could even measure a copper conductor accurately. I’m still hoping for the best, but if I need to infer from the experimental setup, this guy doesn’t know what he’s doing.

  6. > LK-99 is a composite … LK-99 + Pb + Cu + Cu2S

    Just in case, I post again my proposal for an alternative synthesis, which should not produce any of the byproducts:
    9 PbO + CuO + 6 H3PO4 -> Pb9Cu(PO4)6O + 9 H2O

    The source oxides can be pre-mixed with mortar & pestle in separate step, to obtain the mixed oxide. After that, mix with a stoichiometric amount of anhydrous H3PO4 (s), and grind again with mortar & pestle. Place the resulting mixture in a vacuum furnace, and hold first at ~120C to allow the water byproduct to evaporate. This should drive the reaction towards completion, leaving only the pure product. Afterwards, optionally hold at the higher temperature as suggested in the original paper to sinter and anneal the product compound.

  7. Putting probes on a mixed mass isn’t the same as testing a clean, pure “wire”.

    This is useful if the sample being tested is only LK99.

    Imagine chopping up a length of copper wire, mixing it into concrete, then putting probes on the block.

    Wouldn’t expect to see much flow there, either.

  8. The story is that the Korean team had been working with LK-99 for a couple decades and the preprint papers didn’t give that much detail about making LK-99. The first question is can outside labs replicate measurements using LK-99 made by the Koreans. The second is can they replicate the material itself with help from the Koreans. There is little evidence at this point that there was any fraudulent intent – they sincerely believed they had a discovery worth working on. Failure to replicate at this point isn’t good evidence that there is nothing worth investigating.

    • I couldn’t agree more. I for one am actually much more excited now that multiple teams have had the limited successes that they have had.

      I also second what the poster above said about mixing a copper wire into concrete, measuring both ends of the block and concluding that copper doesn’t conduct electricity at all. That’s a good analogy that I’ll probably steal at some point in the future.

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