LK-99 Superconductor Breakthrough - Why it MATTERS!

new research on a room temperature superconductor  has a scientific community and a buzz and for good   reason this will be one of the greatest  breakthroughs in the history of physics   we're talking instant Nobel prizes for  the people involved and billions and   billions of dollars game-changing stuff  but there's been some controversy around   superconductors in recent memory and the  bigger the claim the more we have to be   skeptical so what's really going on is  it really legitimate and what could this   mean let's figure this out together  I'm Ricky and this is TwoBit DaVinci foreign by the way this was the winning Topic in  our last poll so don't forget to subscribe and   vote on future videos to decide what we make next  alright so why does this matter well five percent   of the energy produced in the US is wasted during  transmission through power lines that's enough to   power all seven Central American countries four  times over with superconductors you have basically   no resistance no losses and near perfect energy  transfer that would be one of the game changers   and there's a whole bunch more but we'll get back  to that here in just a second let's start with   what we know a team of researchers from South  Korea claim they have achieved a superconductor   material codenamed LK 99 at room temperature and  atmospheric pressure superconductivity was first   discovered by Dutch physicist haike kamerling  ones back in 1911. like ferromagnetism and atomic   Spectra lines superconductivity is a phenomenon  which can only be explained by quantum mechanics   now that is a key factor in this story it kind  of ties it all together and we'll get back to   that multiple times throughout this story the key  requirements to be classified as a superconductor   are the following one the electrical resistance  vanishes and two magnetic flux fields are expelled   from within the material don't worry we're  going to explain both principles if you want   to transfer electricity through a wire you want  something with as low a resistance as possible   here's a table of some of the lowest resistances  among Metals silver is really low but it's super   expensive so the worldwide standard is copper to  be classified as a superconductor resistance has   to be below 1 times 10 to the negative 13 ohm  meters this means that even copper has a 168   000 Times Higher resistance than a superconductor  if you have a toaster at home and see those   glowing red hot coils that's probably nichrome  a material that's really high resistance now   it's high on purpose because it's built to waste  energy as heat to toast your bread but here's the   crazy part it's only 66 Times Higher resistance  than copper that means our worldwide standard   material copper is closer to a horrible conductor  than it is to a superconductor one of the easiest   ways to understand resistance is by thinking about  an airplane flying through the air a bad conductor   like our nichrome and our toaster is like slapping  on engines on a big refrigerator yes it'll fly   but you'll be wasting a ton of energy to move it  around and then copper would be like a Boeing 787   Dreamliner with a blunt nose and tapered tail  to absolutely minimize drag this would require   much less energy and then our superconductor  would be like that same Boeing 787 climbing   out of the atmosphere and into outer space where  there is no air molecules at all sure I understand   there would be no oxygen for the ingestion for  the engines and there'd be no molecules for the   lift over the wings but if you think about it  that way that 787 would just fly at that speed   indefinitely because there would be no losses and  that's kind of what's happening with a super index   we'll talk more about the benefits in just a bit  but first let's talk a little bit about the drama   and controversy surrounding this breakthrough now  there is a great deal of excitement uncertainty   and doubt surrounding this discovery in science  and engineering the greater the claim the greater   the skepticism you need to approach it with  but there's added skepticism through no fault   of their own ranga Diaz a physicist at the  University of Rochester in the U.S had a paper   published in nature in 2020. in the paper he  and his colleagues claim to have created a room   temperature superconductor from a combination  of carbon sulfur and hydrogen under extreme   pressure the publication nature later retracted  that paper in 2022 after other researchers were   unable to replicate the results the concerns were  raised about how the raw data collected from the   experiments was processed basically they were  saying there's some fabrication potential fraud   and other issues the scientific journal physical  review letters PRL is reportedly preparing to   retract a second paper by Diaz on the electrical  properties of manganese use disulfide according   to Nature PRL is investigating allegations of  data fabrication and falsification combined   with concerns raised by the first retraction but  Diaz's team only solved the temperature problem   their superconductor still needed super high  pressures to work so it wouldn't work in this room   for example the temperature would be okay but you  would have to have incredible High pressures now   this latest breakthrough that we're talking about  today from Korea claims that it works not just at   room temperature but at atmospheric pressure  that is a double Game Changer and it's become   controversial because of previous claims by ranga  and others and it's got the scientific communities   guard up it would be like starting a new crypto  exchange after the FTX debacle it doesn't mean   that it's not above board but it's going to get  much more scrutiny no one is accusing the latest   research team of being fraudulent at least not yet  but there are some interesting things going on for   example two papers hit the internet within two  hours of each other the first room temperature   ambient pressure super conductor and later  a second paper titled superconductor showing   levitation at room temperature and atmospheric  pressure and mechanism now these papers weren't   published to Nature or science but a pre-print  server called arcsif this isn't in and of itself a   bad thing it just means that further corroboration  and verification is required for wider scientific   acceptance if this turns out to be real this is  an automatic Nobel Prize they have it locked up   but interestingly it can only be shared among  three people the emergence of two papers and   the Mad Dash to make sure people are getting  credit is actually a good sign that there might   actually be something to this claim so here is a  list of the three authors on the first paper and   the six authors on the second it'll be really  interesting how all the credits and stuff work   out and whose names get attributed to the Nobel  Prize if that's on the horizon now let's talk a   little bit about the timeline of how we reached  this breakthrough sukbey Lee met jihoon Kim in   1996 and got their first taste of superconducting  materials in 1999. Lee finishes his PhD in 2004   and sets up Q Center which works on Quantum  Computing and has direct ties to superconductors   the first tie to quantum computers by 2017 they  were getting close to having something and started   raising money in 2018 young Juan Quan a physics  Professor comes on board part-time as her CTO   in 2019 they confirmed that they have a room  temperature superconductor working and fought   for Korean patents for production of low resistant  ceramic compound in 2020 covid happens and they go   heads down and finally isolate the superconductor  obtain its Crystal composition and analyze the   characteristic structure they make a submission to  Nature and get rejected because of the ranga Diaz   controversy it's kind of a tough time to publish  papers they were asked to publish locally and get   it peer reviewed to help with credibility on the  world stage they bring on Hyun talk Kim Research   professor of physics at William and Mary to help  in further test and validate their claims in March   2023 they filed for their International patent  application and of course in July they published   the papers that we're here talking about okay now  let's look at how LK 99 works this is going to get   a little bit technical we'll try to keep it very  easy to understand but we do have chapters below   and I wouldn't be offended if you skipped ahead  but this is going to be interesting I promise   the key to such a major breakthrough comes from  an unconventional form of superconductivity in a   normal conductor free electrons within a material  move around in a crystal structure and bounce   off atoms and ions along the way this creates  resistance that makes them lose part of their   energy which is dissipated as heat and absorbed  in the larger lattice this is why resistivity is   very clear mostly tied to temperature because the  higher the temperature the more ion motion there   is and the more collisions and losses there  are and this is why normally superconductors   have to be cool to near absolute zero but  in a superconductor this doesn't happen the   conventional explanation is the bardeen Cooper  schreifer Theory or BCS Theory from 1957. this   Theory explains that superconductivity is caused  by the formation of Cooper pairs which are pairs   of electrons with opposite spins that are Loosely  bound together by a weak attractive Force Cooper   pairs are different from normal electrons and  that they can condense into a coherent wave of   superconducting electrons these pairs flow through  the material as one instead of moving as multiple   free electrons it's like someone guiding a group  of people with a thin rope through a dark Forest   as opposed to blindfolding everyone putting them  in the middle of the forest and hoping they get to   the other side without running into trees but LK  99 is like teleporting from one side of the forest   to the other the problem with Cooper pairs is  that the string that keeps them together is weak   and any minor thermal vibration in the crystal  lattice will break them apart so you need very low   temperatures for conventional superconductors to  work but lq 99 doesn't rely on weak Cooper pairs   it relies on a new form of superconduction coined  superconducting Quantum Wells which enables it to   work at much higher temperatures than ever thought  possible in the past superconductors only worked   near absolute zero where you needed liquid helium  to cool them but then there was a new breakthrough   of high temperature superconductors but they were  still incredibly incredibly cold and you would   need to be around negative 200 degrees Celsius and  you could cool them with liquid nitrogen but LK 99   can work as high as 400 degrees Kelvin that's  260 degrees Fahrenheit or 127 degrees Celsius   that is a new temperature range that scientists  didn't even think was possible based on the old   theory of Cooper pairs so how does it work well  it has everything to do with chemical structure LK   99 is a solid made by replacing some of the lead  atoms in lead appetite with copper atoms like this   right here lead appetite is an insulator and its  structure it forms a series of stacked Columns of   lead atoms surrounded by phosphate groups this  is what that structure looks like from viewed   from above you can see the circle of six light  gray lead atoms and the external circle of pink   phosphorus and other dark gray lead atoms when we  replace one of the outer lead atoms which forms a   framework of the structure with a copper atom the  entire structure shrinks by about half a percent   because copper is smaller than lead and the whole  thing gets a bit distorted this shrinkage causes   stress on the internal column of lead atoms and  create superconducting Quantum Wells along the   column this is like opening a series of portals  between lead atoms inside that vertical column   electrons can pop in and out from those magical  portals through Quantum tunneling avoiding all   obstacles and therefore showing no resistance  one thing I found interesting about this paper is   that it's blame superconductivity in a different  way yet it still works for other superconductors   it basically says that what you need to do is  contract and distort the crystal structure to make   these Quantum Wells you can do that by lowering  the temperature or increasing the pressure which   we've done in the past but the moment that  pressure drops your temperature increases your   superconductor stops superconducting the new way  to do this is to change the structure from within   and just by adding this copper and increasing that  stress it appears they've done it now this is at   the heart of what they've accomplished here what's  amazing is it's not particularly that exotic and   or hard to do these are things that we've been  doing for a long time I honestly think this will   spark a new wave of research and before long  we'll have tens if not hundreds of new ambient   superconductors for all sorts of applications  but how good of a superconductor is LK 99 not   all superconductors are the same and scientists  classify them according to several performance   metrics first there's resistivity a low resistive  is what makes a superconductor however no matter   what you've heard it's not exactly zero  the threshold for material to be considered   superconducting is a resistivity of 10 to the  negative 8 to 10 to the negative 9 ohm centimeters   as you can see in this graph LK 99 shows a  maximum of around 4 times 10 to the negative   9 ohm centimeters but in general it's lower than  that around 10 to the negative 10 ohm centimeters   then there's critical temperature this is a  temperature at which superconductivity is lost   and that's what defines a high or low temperature  superconductor this graph shows the measured   voltage for different levels of current inside  LK 99 at different temperatures the horizontal   flat part is where it acts as a superconductor  notice that as the temperature increases that   horizontal range gets smaller for example at  room temperature 298 Kelvin has a really wide   band of currents that it can support but that  shrinks that higher the temperature gets all   the way to this tiny range of super conductivity  when the temperatures reach almost 400 Kelvin but   let's take a minute to appreciate that even at  400 degrees Kelvin it's still superconducting   at least a little and that was unheard of before  especially at ambient pressure Lee and his team   were only able to reach 400 degrees because their  equipment couldn't go any further can you imagine   the industrial applications of a superconductor  working at over 400 degrees Kelvin would have one   thing that was bugging me about superconductors  is that if there's no resistance can you get an   infinite current inside a superconductor can  I use it to charge my car in like a second and   I found the answer is no notice that high or low  currents the same graph there's a jump in voltage   that signals the loss of superconductivity to  quenching which happens when the current inside   the conductor generates the magnetic field that  breaks superconductivity the current at which   that happens is called the critical current or  IC here is a plot of the critical current versus   temperature for LK 99 really what it tells us is  around room temperature that critical current was   what we saw earlier around 250 milliamps but that  value quickly drops as a temperature increases   so really anything higher than that and  it turns into a regular metallic conductor   finally we have the famous meissner effect or  superconducting magnetic levitation the team of   researchers actually managed to make a coin size  sample levitate well sort of on top of a powerful   permanent magnet here's actual video footage  of the authors playing with a little sample   and you can see that there is definitely something  pushing up but is it floating I'll let you be the   judge of that the meissner effect is explained by  the formation of little Loops of electric current   called screening currents on the surface of  the superconductor these currents are like   electromagnets that generate a magnetic field  that exactly cancel out the external magnetic   field so it levitates this principle is what  makes superconductors attractive for high-speed   maglev trains so at this point you've got to be  wondering what's the catch rare materials complex   processes toxic chemicals no this superconductor  is actually pretty easy and cheap to make all you   need is lead oxide lead sulfate copper powder and  phosphorus the entire synthesis is a three-step   solid state process where you put the ingredients  inside a sealed quartz tube and cook it in a lab   oven at less than a thousand degrees Celsius for  about four days and it's done once you get this   ugly looking rock you can use it as is or  you can make thin films with it using thermal   vapor deposition this is standard technology in  Industries like Electronics Optics and Aerospace   this is seriously game changing technology but  there are many questions that are still unanswered   is there a way to combine several conductors  to achieve higher currents I mean 300 milliamps   isn't a lot especially for industrial purposes and  power transmission can you imagine charging your   Tesla on 300 milliamps these measurements were  made on a tiny sample what would happen when we   make this into a 12 mile track for a maglev train  would it still work how will this scale and what   about joints can you connect two pieces of LK 99  and have the superconductivity pass from one to   the other or does it have to be one constant solid  piece these are things we just don't know yet but   if these guys claims are legit which they seem to  be we'll know very soon and when we do we'll have   a follow-up video and we'll bring you up to speed  on all the new findings this is very early on but   it's very promising the next steps are going to  be critical they have provided their work for the   entire scientific community and a lot of labs and  research facilities around the world are trying it   for themselves the next step is corroboration  and replication can other people do the same   thing this is part of what makes the scientific  process so powerful is repeatability if only one   person can do it odds are there might be some foul  playing but if others in the scientific Community   can start to test it which they will be doing in  the coming weeks or so we'll do follow videos and   tell you how this plays out the amazing part  is that this is not exotic the material drills   required are pretty common lead is a fairly common  material in the Earth's crust and so as everything   else required even the machines and Fabrication  processes are pretty straightforward so   there should be really no reason why we shouldn't  have an answer the next month or so now let's   assume that this actually is legit and all  their claims are true what could this mean   for the world well this would have a deep impound  on almost every engineering discipline one of the   key benefits of superconductors is confinement  let me give you two examples the first is an MRI   machine MRI machines produce such strong magnetic  fields that it's important to confine those fields   to the room otherwise they could be harmful to  pacemakers or people that didn't sign up for an   MRI the first MRI machines used around 40 tons of  iron to line the rooms they sat in to Shield the   magnetic fields this makes it incredibly expensive  and difficult to install MRI machines but modern   MRI machines use secondary electromagnets to  operate in a superconducting state they have   zero resistance and can carry large amounts  of current without overheating the only catch   is that these superconductors need to be cooled  with liquid helium down to negative 269 degrees   Celsius or 4 Kelvin that's 4 degrees from absolute  zero and that is the largest part of the cost and   maintenance of running MRI machines but with room  temperature superconductors system design would be   simplified dramatically and MRI machines up  front and operational cost would be slashed   significantly imagine MRI machines available for  a lot more than just the most critical things and   not having long wait times medicine Game Changer  how about nuclear fusion reactors again the high   energy plasma that is produced has to be confined  which is currently done with superconductors and   again at very low temperatures this energy input  to keep that superconductor material cold could be   made away with in a world with room temperature  superconductors the meissner effect would even   allow for Ultra efficient low-cost maglev trains  like we mentioned before you would need neodymium   or other rare earth metals you could use this  room room temperature superconductor how about   Ultra efficient electric vehicles that don't  need battery or motor cooling all the heat that   is produced in Copper from running windings  inside of an electric motor have to be cooled   because they're not perfectly efficient and do  have some resistance and this reduces efficiency   twice because one you're wasting some of that  electricity as heat and two you have to run   pumps and heat exchangers to handle that heat  both of those things use energy that aren't   propelling your car forward superconductors are  also able to maintain a current with no applied   voltage experiments have demonstrated that  currents in a superconducting coil can persist   for years without any measurable degradation  experimental evidence points to a lifetime   of at least a hundred thousand years so might  we be on the brink of a whole new industry of   room temperature superconductor batteries that's  a video all by itself for another day but by far   the most fascinating application has to do with  the fundamental research Suk Bay Lee was working   on at Q Center and that's quantum computers if  you've ever seen a picture of a quantum computer   in all its Glory it is a really beautiful  machine the chip itself is actually really   small the rest of the machine is entirely made  and there for keeping it cool room temperature   SCS would be one of the biggest game changers and  it would allow a world where we could have quantum   computers on our phones and our laptops we also  mentioned power distribution right that's another   one let us know in the comments below if there  are other conditions where a room temperature   superconductor would be completely game changing  we'd love to love to hear from you this is   one of the most exciting papers I've read  in recent memory and I started with a very   healthy dose of skepticism because of the other  falsified claims from a couple of years ago   from what I've seen there is reason to be  optimistic and we will have to wait for   verification from other labs around the world  but what an amazing thing I can't wait to see   how this plays out and we will definitely cover  it in future videos if you have other ideas or   other details that we've left out let us know in  the comments we will definitely do a follow-up   video with more context and hopefully that was  insightful and if you thought that was cool   check out this video next until next week I'm  recutive Da Vinci thank you so much for watching

Channel: Two Bit da Vinci

Views: 1,618,085

Keywords: two bit da vinci, room temperature superconductor, room-temperature superconductor, room-temperature superconductivity, room temperature superconductor korea, quantum wells, cooper pairs, room temperature superconductivity, room temp superconductor, room temp superconductivity, room-temp superconductor, room-temp superconductivity, Room Temperature Ambient Pressure Super Conductor Breakthrough, rtap superconductor, rtap, lk99 superconductor, lk-99 superconductor, lk-99, lk99

Id: PLr95AFBRXI

Length: 21min 51sec (1311 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 29 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/johnjmcmillion]

The true holy grail of physics is the Grand Unified Theory. HTSC is a close second.

[u/ohnosquid]

tbh 300 mA of critical current is extremely low but if it is truly a room temperature superconductor I'm pretty sure that we will be quick to find ways to increase it

[u/punter1965]

Well done explanation. And likely a game changer if true. Fingers crossed...

[u/JeffWest01]

Maybe....should know in a few days.

[u/Clear-Resort5801]

Really cool. Thanks!