About room temperature superconductors? Is it real or not? The story is confusing.

On the morning of July 22, a team of researchers associated with the Korea Quantum Energy Research Center Inc. published two papers one after another on arXiv, announcing the birth of LK-99 and publicizing its fabrication technology. Subsequently, laboratories in various countries attempted to synthetically reproduce LK-99 to verify its discovery.

On July 31, Beihang researchers submitted a paper on arXiv, stating that the experimental results did not find the superconductivity of LK-99. They obtained a sample of LK-99 with an X-ray diffraction pattern consistent with that of the South Korean team, but were unable to detect giant antimagnetism and did not observe magnetic levitation.

On July 31, Russian scientist Iris Alexandra, announced the successful preparation of LK-99 crystals with room-temperature antimagnetism, the results of which were posted on twitter. Moreover, the antimagnetism of this LK-99 crystal is much stronger than that of pyrolytic graphite, a commonly used antimagnetic substance.

Almost at the same time, Sinead Griffin, a researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in the United States, also submitted a relevant paper on arXiv. Griffin believes that the calculation results show that LK-99 may have superconducting properties, with high-temperature superconductor Fermi energy level flat band characteristics.

On August 1, a research team from Huazhong University of Science and Technology released a video in the capacity of B station UP owner "Guanshangkou man technician": successfully synthesized for the first time the LK-99 crystal that can be magnetically levitated. In the video, the sample is shown to be spontaneously lifted in a magnetic field, and the angle of levitation of the crystal is larger than that of the sample obtained by South Korean scientist Sukbae Lee, which is expected to realize the true meaning of contactless

superconducting magnetic levitation.

Taken together, based on the first experimental reproduction results, the discovery of LK-99 seems to have some basis in theory, but its authenticity remains doubtful.

This is because superconducting materials need to have three properties: zero resistance, complete antimagnetism, and quantum tunneling effect. True superconductivity refers to a state in which a conductor has zero resistance under certain conditions. Although its antimagnetism has been verified in some experiments, in the opinion of several industry experts, the key to defining whether LK-99 is a room-temperature superconductor or not still depends on whether the subsequent experiments have zero-resistance properties, "which will be the only milestone."

When the truth is still cloudy, there is a new twist across the ocean.

Just yesterday, Taj Quantum, a Florida-based company, published photos saying it had discovered a new room-temperature superconducting material. It's a fragile graphene foam. The company has been granted a "patent for a room temperature type II superconductor," which could mean that the material will go into production. However, the material has not been evaluated by a peer-reviewed or third-party laboratory, and no performance data has been provided, which the company says it is working to resolve.
But it was precisely this yet-to-be-confirmed news that triggered an instant stock market frenzy when it was released. on Aug. 1, American Superconductor closed up 60%, and at one point jumped more than 140% in pre-market. In the last five trading days, the stock has risen about 130%, and the current share price is close to a nearly three-year high.

As we all know, "superconductors" can be guaranteed at a particular temperature resistance of zero, is widely used in energy storage, magnetic levitation trains, power transmission, nuclear magnetic resonance and other fields.

Room temperature superconductivity can lead to such a big shock, the root of the room temperature superconductivity, once realized, will profoundly change the current energy system, information processing and transmission system, and in energy, transportation, computing, medical testing and even controlled fusion and many other areas to bring progress.

Potential applications that may be realized after a breakthrough in room temperature atmospheric pressure superconducting materials include:

More efficient energy transmission, conversion and storage: superconducting materials can transmit electricity without loss by utilizing the characteristic of zero resistance, which makes energy transmission efficiency, stability and reliability greatly improved.

Higher-speed transportation: superconducting materials bring about an increase in the efficiency of electrical energy transmission and the possibility of reducing the cost of magnetic levitation trains, which will have a direct impact on the transformation of high-speed transportation.

Faster information processing speed: superconducting materials have high quantum properties at low temperatures, which can be used to build quantum computers with computing speeds far exceeding those of existing computers.

More advanced means of treatment: superconducting materials have a wide range of applications in the medical field, such as MRI, superconducting coils. The emergence of superconducting materials at room temperature and pressure will provide the possibility of miniaturization and portability of medical equipment, and promote the development and progress of medical technology.

Tianfeng International analyst Ming-Chi Guo, who has the title of "the strongest Apple analyst on the surface", also tweeted that there is no specific time for the commercialization of ambient superconductors at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, but if it can be successfully commercialized in the future, it will have a disruptive impact on product design in the fields of computers and consumer electronics.