The scientific community may have largely settled on the matter of copper-doped lead apatite (LK-99) not being the room-temperature, ambient-pressure superconductor we need, but research groups are still finding reasons to look further.
A new pre-print paper published by Arxiv reports on a quantum mechanics simulation exploring LK-99’s possible superconductivity pathways.
Authored by Jun Li and Qi An with the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Iowa State University, the research paper reports on how current experimental LK-99 synthesis can theoretically lead to two final end-products.
In certain samples, high-symmetry arrangements of fundamental particles can leave open the space through which electrons can zip through unimpeded and without resistance (usually by bonding together in what are called Cooper pairs).
This leads the study authors to posit that “the synthesis of LK-99 samples predominantly in the high-symmetry phase could pave the way to realizing room-temperature superconductors at ambient pressure.”
But practically, the current synthesis process (and superconductivity itself) could simply be still too poorly understood for us to be able to devise ways of improving yield - increasing the amount of useful, high-symmetry CU-doped lead apatite.
The original article contains 459 words, the summary contains 186 words. Saved 59%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The scientific community may have largely settled on the matter of copper-doped lead apatite (LK-99) not being the room-temperature, ambient-pressure superconductor we need, but research groups are still finding reasons to look further.
A new pre-print paper published by Arxiv reports on a quantum mechanics simulation exploring LK-99’s possible superconductivity pathways.
Authored by Jun Li and Qi An with the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Iowa State University, the research paper reports on how current experimental LK-99 synthesis can theoretically lead to two final end-products.
In certain samples, high-symmetry arrangements of fundamental particles can leave open the space through which electrons can zip through unimpeded and without resistance (usually by bonding together in what are called Cooper pairs).
This leads the study authors to posit that “the synthesis of LK-99 samples predominantly in the high-symmetry phase could pave the way to realizing room-temperature superconductors at ambient pressure.”
But practically, the current synthesis process (and superconductivity itself) could simply be still too poorly understood for us to be able to devise ways of improving yield - increasing the amount of useful, high-symmetry CU-doped lead apatite.
The original article contains 459 words, the summary contains 186 words. Saved 59%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!