The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor may have been developed.
According to the authors, the LK-99 material can be prepared in about 34 hrs with extremely basic lab equipment (a mortar & pestle, basic vacuum, and furnace). These results could be replicated within days or weeks.
Superconductivity would be a game changer in a lot of areas. 🧵
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That sounds amazing! Although with some uses being medical, it's not hard to imagine it being exploited for easy profit rather than for lowering costs to the public benefit.
Very nice that the actual recipe is publicly available. At the very least, that can't be undone.
Apparently they patented the compound back in 2021
https://patents.google.com/patent/KR20230030188A/en
So China is going to pirate it, then
The actual material itself is not very useful for industrial purposes the critical current where superconductivity breaks down is too low for shit like maglev trains
But if the principles for superconductivity were identified correctly someone else could find an analogous material to this that can operate at a higher current
Figured something like this lmao