In just 2 weeks, unlikely “discovery” skyrockets to internet fame and then begins to fall back to Earth
The title of the paper, which was posted with a companion on the arXiv preprint server on 22 July, says it all: When seasoned with copper, a humble lead-based mineral becomes a superconductor that works far above room temperature and at atmospheric pressure. To date, all superconductors—materials that can convey electricity without resistance or loss of energy to heat—have required temperatures far colder than room temperature or crushing pressures.
Superconductivity is inherently a low-temperature phenomenon. Ordinarily, electrons cannot pass easily through a crystalline solid because they bounce off vibrating atoms in the crystal lattice. However, in some materials, at low enough temperatures, the electrons form loosely bound, overlapping pairs that can’t be deflected without breaking the pairs. And at low temperatures, the vibrations aren’t strong enough to break the bonds, so those electron pairs glide through the material unimpeded.
But even in a field filled with bold assertions, the South Korean researchers’ claim is extraordinary. In the papers, which have not been peer reviewed, they argue that when doped with copper, the mineral lead apatite—which contains lead, oxygen, and phosphorus—superconducts at ambient pressure and temperatures of at least 400 K, higher than the boiling point of water. If that is true, then just sitting on your desk, the stuff should convey electricity without resistance.
There are also questions of basic physics, Norman says. Conventional superconductors, such as niobium, tin, and mercury, are all metals. High-temperature superconductors, such as yttrium barium copper oxide, have to be doped to make them metallic before they’ll superconduct. In contrast, undoped lead apatite is an insulator, Norman says.
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