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Comment by ChemSpider | Hacker News Reader

My issue here is: This new material is essentially standard "high temperature" YBCO superconductor material just slightly modified, or? The authors are not doing anything dramatically new, like a new chemistry.

How likely is it that all the other 1000s of labs doing research on this topic just missed this lucky combination of baking, cooling and whatnot?

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No, there's no YB and they propose an entirely novel mechanism for how generic metals (a whole host of possible combinations) can achieve superconductivity in these conditions. At least check out the formula or open the link.

> modified lead-apatite (LK-99) structure

> The superconductivity of LK-99 originates from minute structural distortion by a slight volume shrinkage (0.48 %), not by external factors such as temperature and pressure. The shrinkage is caused by Cu2+ substitution of Pb2+ (2) ions in the insulating network of Pb(2)-phosphate and it generates the stress.

> Pb10(PO4)6O

It's just Lead, Phosphorus and Oxygen all the way.

(That said I don't believe it works)

For me, that is what I would call "just bake something together", the YBCO way.

That said, I see now that I should have made this point clearer. See below for my comment with C60. That was a truly different approach (that failed).

> My issue here is: This new material is essentially standard "high temperature" YBCO superconductor material just slightly modified, or? The authors are not doing anything dramatically new, like a new chemistry.

There is no Pb in YBCO, what are you on about?

That is what I would call a slightly modified approach. They just "bake something together" and hope to get lucky. No way.

Anyway, I am not an expert. I hope they have a win here, but hard to believe at this point.

AIUI The only thing in common is they both contain copper.

Not an expert either, and extremely skeptical myself. The poor videos claiming to demonstrate levitation just seemed to show diamagnetism and eddy current reactions.

The space of possible combinations of just three different elements of the periodic table is huge. This is before you get into added dimensions of processing, ratios of each element to the others, different possible crystal structures, etc.

It’s not a standard matrix and what do you mean by no new chemistry?

To create such a dramatic increase in critical temperature, I would expect you need a dramatic change in chemistry (as in: formula, materials,...) as well.

I mean it's not even the same basic elements. How much more of a dramatic change were you thinking?

Well, last time I had some hope for room temperature superconductors that was with doped fullerenes (C60 and friends). That was a truly novel approach.

Kim seems to credit the fact that he’s a chemist, not a physicist.

Even if it is very unlikely, they still may have missed it. Let's be patient, we will soon know more, give them two more weeks.

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