LK-99 is all the buzz on social media, but it is just the latest of many claims to have created a room-temperature superconductor. What is it that has people so excited, and what — if anything — sets this claim apart?
To qualify as a superconductor — like the low-temperature one shown here — a material must expel all magnetic fields, which would allow it to levitate over a magnet. This is one of many tests LK-99 will have to pass to be recognized as the first room-temperature superconductor.
Meanwhile, researchers around the world, as well as some amateur home scientists, are racing to replicate the results. So far, none have produced LK-99 and observed superconductivity. An image from one of the papers describing LK-99, which shows the material levitating at least partially above a magnet. The photo spread like wildfire on social media, though experts were quick to say that superconductivity is far from the only explanation.
Hallas explained that at the atomic level, superconductors work because electrons pair up and stop behaving like electrons."Think of it as people dancing in a bar or in a nightclub," she said. "In a normal metal, everyone is dancing by themselves and ... doing their own thing. And maybe they're, like, bumping into each other and hitting elbows.
Physicists hope that the next jump will be to a material that can function as a superconductor at room temperature.The applications of a room-temperature superconductor could be revolutionary, experts say. Using a room-temperature superconductor would remove the need for liquid helium to keep the magnets cool, potentially paving the way for portable MRI machines that could be brought into remote communities.
For Pope of the Perimeter Institute, it's also important not to overlook what this could mean for our infrastructure. "Those big overhead transmission lines that you see, about 15 per cent of the power is lost from the power generating station till it gets to your home. [If we] replaced all of those wires there with superconducting wires, the amount lost would be zero."
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