INSULATORS The “Wrong Superconductor”: LK-99

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The recent buzz in the world of science and technology, the room-temperature superconductor “LK-99”, is not a superconductor anymore. The overhyped copper-doped lead apatite named LK-99 seems to be a room-temperature superconductor only in the inventor's research paper.

What is LK-99 exactly?

LK-99 took the internet by storm in late July/early August 2023. The compound (copper-doped lead apatite) is made from oxygen, phosphorus, lead, and copper-doped ions. LK-99 was said to exhibit superconductivity at temperatures high as 126 degrees, under normal pressure. You can find details about LK-99 and the surrounding hype around it in our detailed article.

Post-research

All these months, the theories about LK-99 remained the talk of the scientific and tech community. Many news channels, publishing houses, and reputed websites called LK-99 the “holy grail of superconductors”. A video of LK-99 was heavily circulated on social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter), and YouTube. However, unfortunately, the practical results to verify the superconducting properties of LK-99 have failed. Studies about LK-99 claim that it is not a superconductor. Many reputed scientists and researchers name LK-99 an “anti-superconductor”.

How did science reject LK-99?

The scientific community has always treated “LK-99” as controversial. Scientists, researchers, enthusiasts, techies, and DIY makers, tried to replicate LK-99. The attempts to mimic LK-99 have shown no signs of superconductivity.

In reality, LK-99 is not even a good conductor of electricity. Instead, LK-99 is said to be an “insulator” in its purest form. An insulator is a material that exhibits zero to very low electrical conductivity and high (to infinite) resistivity. The insulating property of LK-99 is observable at the critical “superconducting” temperature (126 degrees Celsius) in ambient pressure.

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Sources that prove LK-99 is not a superconductor

Various studies and test papers (listed below) show that LK-99 can either be an insulator or semiconductor, along with ferromagnetic or diamagnetic properties. The following sources claim that LK-99 is not a room-temperature and ambient-pressure superconductor.

• A team of scientists from Iowa State University, United States, studied the behavior of LK-99 using quantum mechanics-based modular dynamics (QM-MD). The results show that the base compounds of lead and oxygen in LK-99 have significant large band gaps, making LK-99 a poor conductor of electricity. But copper dopants make LK-99 exhibit semiconducting properties.

• The Condensed Matter Theory Center (CMTC) at the University of Maryland, USA, slammed LK-99 in a series of tweets and accused it of being a “poor quality” material with high resistivity about a billion times higher than copper. The same study claims that LK-99 did not exhibit superconductivity even at low temperatures about minus hundred to two hundred degrees Celsius.

• A National Taiwan University (NTU) physics professor conducted various tests on LK-99 in August 2023. The results do not show LK-99 to exhibit zero electrical resistance at any temperature.

• National Physical Laboratory of India finds the absence of superconductivity in LK-99. The scientists even state that LK-99 does not even levitate in their findings.

• A paper published in China reports traces of ferromagnetism half levitation in LK-99. Another similar experiment suggests that LK-99 has diamagnetic properties.

• The paper demonstrates an experiment to synthesize LK-99. The results show a drastic decrease in electrical resistivity, but it does not reach zero. Another similar study of drop in electrical resistivity suggests LK-99 to have semiconducting properties.

The most credible source can be the words of the inventors themselves. According to a Korean news source, one of the inventors, Dr. Kim recently admitted that their paper about LK-99 had “flaws” and was published without the consent of all the authors”!

If not LK-99, which is the world’s hottest superconductor?

Scientifically, it is tougher to correlate words like “superconductivity” and “high temperature”. Superconductivity is a phenomenon that belongs to temperatures low in the order of hundred or two hundred degrees Celsius. Science terms the superconductors at less cold temperatures as “high-temperature superconductors”. The pressure conditions supporting superconductivity at less colder temperatures are quite high. The following superconductors are “hot”:

As of 2023, Lanthanum Decahydride stands as the hottest superconductor under dense atmospheric pressure and temperature conditions. In conclusion, as the studies suggest, LK-99 is not a hot superconductor.

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So, has the scientific race to room-temperature superconductivity really ended?

No, the scientific race to achieve superconductivity under manageable temperatures, and pressure has not ended. Scientists continue to conduct various experiments and publish papers to study superconductivity and associated technologies.

Recently, MIT Physicists have developed the world's first 3D electronic flat band. The presence of a flat band structure boosts cooper-pair formation, leading to superconductive character. Coincidentally, some scientists believed that LK-99 may possess superconductive behavior as an effect of a flat band structure. However, LK-99 does not have a flat band structure.

The fact that LK-99 is not a room-temperature superconductor but an insulator (or semiconductor) shatters dreams of scaling energy production, storage, electricity transmission, and consumer electronics. In conclusion, not LK-99 but some other material can open doors for normal temperature superconductivity to make superconductors inexpensive, and common as semiconductors.

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