When news broke last month, detailing the discovery of LK-99 – a purported room-temperature, ambient-pressure superconductor – the excitement was palpable. Such a discovery would result in world-changing advancements in a variety of technologies. After anxiously awaiting verification on the veracity of claims surrounding LK-99, results are just now being reported from various labs around the world.
Source: X @condensed_the
The results? As seen above on its public X feed, in the eyes of the Condensed Matter Theory Center (CMTC), which operates out of the University of Maryland – they are not good. In addition, a separate short paper detailing the findings of a team operating out of the CSIR-National Physical Laboratory in India states that “The freshly synthesized sample does not show any signature of superconductivity levitation on a magnet (diamagnetism).” The team continues, “…there is no sign of superconductivity in LK-99 at room temperature.”
Continued Testing
Despite these early results showing a high likelihood that the original findings behind LK-99 that led to such excitement were either aberrations, inaccurate interpretations, or simply false claims, there remain a variety of labs around the world that continue to attempt recreating the material through different approaches. With groups like the Korean Society of Superconductivity and Cryogenics stating to Bloomberg that its review process will take up to 4 weeks, there is still a chance that recreation could occur – however unlikely that may seem at this point in time.
Buy the Rumor, Sell the News
Interestingly, Bloomberg notes that in the wake of various claims now refuting LK-99 as a superconductor, various stocks associated with the field have begun to crash after investors began to ‘buy the rumor’ last week. The publication notes that shares in companies like Duksung Co. and Sunam Co., which are each involved in material sciences, dropped precipitously early in the day to the tune of ~30%.
Lather, Rinse, Repeat
If there is an established agreeance across the scientific community in the coming weeks that LK-99 is indeed NOT a superconductor, then this event will mark yet another false call in 2023 after a team out of the University of Rochester thought it had also found the answer after combining lutetium, hydrogen, and nitrogen. Notably, the last time that a major step forward in superconductors occurred dates back 36 years ago with cuprate compounds that leverage layers of oxidized copper ions.
With that being said, it is widely believed that the discovery of a room-temperature, ambient-pressure superconductor will eventually occur. When it does, the world will look like a very different place
The post Too Good to Be True? Veracity of LK-99 Claim Called into Question appeared first on Securities.io.
