That’s a big deal, if it’s real. But…
The First Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor
For the first time in the world, we succeeded in synthesizing the room-temperature superconductor (Tc≥400 K, 127∘C) working at ambient pressure with a modified lead-apatite (LK-99) structure. The superconductivity of LK-99 is proved with the Critical temperature (Tc), Zero-resistivity, Critical current (Ic), Critical magnetic field (Hc), and the Meissner effect.
… I’m going to hold off cheering until I see this reproduced by someone else. Which should be easy, since the synthesis sounds remarkably simple; with common, cheap materials.
But there’s an oddity about the paper’s three authors. I did a search of arXive.org. Between the three of them, I can only find two papers by any of them. One is this one on the discovery of LK-99, and other is a paper of the Meissner Effect levitation of LK-99.
Nothing else. And web searches on their names turns up nothing that isn’t related to this alleged discovery. Not much of a digital footprint.
I see that other people are also sceptical.
While ground breaking if true the odds are it’s not actually true.
Just like fusion power….which has been “right around the corner” since I was a wee lad. And will be for a long time, probably forever.
I’m holding out hope for fusion; but not magnetic confinement (think tokamak) or laser-ignition inertial confinement. The energy input required is too massive.
I’m watching focus fusion; momentary confinement in a plasma twist. The LPPF folks are making remarkable progress consider their comparative half-a-shoestring budget.