Papers or withdrawals, cold response from listed companies, South Korean room temperature superconductivity research triggers global onlookers: stock market frenzy research | Papers | Global

In the past week, research on room temperature superconductivity in South Korea has sparked extremely high discussions online. The capital market is in a frenzy, and there is a heated discussion about the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Related listed companies responded coldly and did not involve it. However, the South Korean research team, which triggered this series of chain reactions, stated that the paper had flaws and was published on their own by team members, who had requested it to be taken down. This means that this paper may be withdrawn.

The discovery of superconductivity is considered one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century and the Holy Grail in physics. However, until now, the practical application of superconductors has been limited to a few specific scenarios such as magnetic levitation. The reason is not difficult to understand. The extremely low superconducting Tc that maintains material superconductivity is a great obstacle for large-scale application development. If superconductivity can be achieved at room temperature, it will have a significant impact on human society.

Affected by this news, a US stock company named American Superconductor surged 150% before Tuesday's trading. On August 1st, the superconducting sector of A-shares also experienced a daily limit up trend, with Falsheng, Baili Electric, and Yongding Shares hitting the limit up. Western Superconducting rose by over 7%, while Lianchuang Optoelectronics rose by 6.3%. On August 2nd, relevant individual stocks continued their strong performance.

However, contrary to the enthusiastic performance of stock prices, relevant listed companies have responded coldly and there is currently no relevant layout.

In fact, as early as it sparked public attention, one of the authors of the two papers, Hyun Tak Kim, a physics professor at William and Mary College in the United States, told the media that there were "many flaws" in the other paper and it was uploaded without his permission. According to the latest media reports, another member of the study also spoke out to the public.

The first author of both papers is Sukbae Lee from the Korean Quantum Energy Research Center, who recently told the media that the research team was not ready to publish the paper, but another member published the paper without the consent of the other authors. The team is currently requesting arXiv to remove the paper. As of now, the two papers on the preprint system arXiv have not been taken down from the shelves.

Recently, researchers from the Korean Quantum Energy Research Center, Goryeo University, and other teams published two papers in arXiv, announcing the successful synthesis of the world's first room temperature and atmospheric pressure superconductor. That is, under atmospheric pressure conditions, a modified lead apatite can act as a superconductor below 127 ℃. They stated in their paper, "We believe that our new developments will be a new historical event that opens up a new era for humanity.".

In just a few days, the news quickly spread from the scientific community to the public domain, with the main focus of discussion being "waiting for a truth.". After all, before the South Korean team, the suspicion of room temperature superconductivity research released by the Ranga Dias team at the University of Rochester in the United States earlier this year has not dissipated.

What adds to the mystery of this incident is that the new research is actually related to two papers. From a timeline perspective, the first paper was submitted at 7:51 am on July 22nd, and the second paper was submitted at 10:11 am on July 22nd. The two papers with a submission time difference of less than 2.5 hours were both published in the preprint system arXiv and have not yet undergone peer review. The number of authors in the two articles is different, but there are two overlapping authors.

However, although Sukbae Lee recently stated that he is not ready to publish a paper, the research team actually published the relevant research in the Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology in April of this year. Some authors also applied for a patent for LK-99 in August 2022. Sukbae Lee also mentioned that the latest study is actually a supplement to a superconductor paper published in a Korean journal in April this year.

The global discussion over the room temperature superconductor LK-99 proposed by the South Korean team has also sparked repeated experiments in some laboratories. On the afternoon of July 31st, researchers from Beihang University submitted relevant papers on arXiv. The X-ray diffraction patterns of the samples they obtained were consistent with those of the South Korean team, but their research also indicated that the existence of room temperature superconductors in modified lead apatite may require more careful further investigation, especially in terms of electrical transmission characteristics.

On the afternoon of July 31st, researchers from the Lawrence National Laboratory in Berkeley, USA, also published a research paper on atomic lattice computational physics simulation calculations on arXiv. They conducted density functional theory calculations on copper substituted apatite and found that there is a flat band that can cross the Fermi level, which also exists in many known high-temperature superconductors.

More than 100 years ago, Dutch physicist Hennes opened the door to superconductivity for humanity. In 1911, Onnes discovered in his research that when the temperature dropped below 4.2K, the resistance of metallic mercury suddenly dropped to zero, which was not caused by any experimental errors. From then on, mercury became the first superconductor discovered by scientists, with a superconducting Tc of 4.2K. The so-called superconducting Tc refers to the superconducting transition temperature, which is the temperature at which a superconductor enters the superconducting state from a normal state.

Over the past 100 years, the field of superconductivity has been constantly exploring. A path points towards superconducting Tc, bringing it infinitely close to the room temperature that is convenient for practical applications; Another path lies in continuously delving deeper into the mechanisms behind superconductivity.