Superconductivity: the search and the scandal
By 
Kit Chapman2024-04-15T09:25:00
Recent high profile controversies haven’t deterred scientists from searching for one of research’s ultimate prizes: room temperature superconductors. Kit Chapman reports on the claims
In July 2023, the world became obsessed with superconductivity. Two pre-prints from a group in South Korea claimed that a copper-doped lead-apatite, dubbed LK-99 after its two proposers, Lee Sukbae and Kim Ji-Hoon, was a superconductor at room temperature and ambient pressure. The claims spread across social media, with both seasoned groups and amateur chemists trying to recreate the material. By August, a consensus was reached that LK-99 was yet another dead end, and not a superconductor at all.
The news followed a paper in Nature that proposed another room-temperature superconductor, this time only showing its properties at intense pressures, by Ranga Dias at the University of Rochester in the US. Yet Dias’ claims have now been retracted, and his data and academic reputation have been brought into question amid allegations of research fraud and plagiarism.