Breaking Superconductor News | Science | AAAS

I wrote recently about the turmoil in the field of higher-temperature superconductors, but little did I know what was coming. Yesterday two preprints appeared on the rXiv site, the first bearing the attention-getting title “The First Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor”, and the second going into more detail about its behavior. As you’d imagine, this made something of a splash during the day on Tuesday! Let’s look at what’s being claimed, and how strong the evidence seems to be. The authors describe a lead-based copper-doped material, LK-99, which is made by first preparing a well-characterized mineral (lanarkite, Pb2(SO4)O) from lead oxide and lead sulfate. Separately, copper phosphide (Cu3P), another well-characterized compound, is also freshly prepared from elemental copper and phosphorus. These two substances are ground together in a 1:1 ratio and the mixture is sealed in a vacuum-evacuated quartz tube and heated to 925C, forming LK-99, which is Pb10-xCux(PO4)6O, a dar

I wrote recently about the turmoil in the field of higher-temperature superconductors, but little did I know what was coming. Yesterday two preprints appeared on the rXiv site, the first bearing the attention-getting title “The First Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor”, and the second going into more detail about its behavior. As you’d imagine, this made something of a splash during the day on Tuesday! Let’s look at what’s being claimed, and how strong the evidence seems to be. The authors describe a lead-based copper-doped material, LK-99, which is made by first preparing a well