Korea's superconductor research sparks global academic interest

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Korea's superconductor research sparks global academic interest

Published: 02 Aug. 2023, 18:38 Updated: 04 Aug. 2023, 10:16

A video of an experiment for LK-99, a compound that a group of Korean researchers claim has superconductivity [QUANTUM ENERGY RESEARCH CENTRE]

Manuscripts by Korean researchers featuring claims around the creation of a room-temperature superconductor have sparked excitement and skepticism around the world, propelling prominent research institutions into a race to replicate the results.

Superconductors, a substance with no electrical resistance, are considered the holy grail in the science and technology communities since they can allow electrical currents to pass through without losing energy.

So far, researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the United States and Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science in China said that their studies partially support the superconductive property of the new compound in question.

The body of research on the breakthrough, including studies by the Korean team led by Lee Suk-bae, are self-archived, which means that they require peer reviews for further scientific verification.

To date, a handful of scientists have managed to find or synthesize materials with superconductive properties. However, they exhibit superconductivity — a state where electrical resistance vanishes — only at extremely low temperatures and high pressures.

In a move that could potentially overcome the limitations, the preliminary papers by Lee and five co-authors claim that a compound of lead, copper, phosphorus and oxygen, dubbed LK-99, can be used for superconducting at room temperatures and ambient atmospheric pressures.

“The presence of superconductivity was confirmed through observations of the levitation phenomenon and analysis of zero resistivity,” the latest paper by Lee stated in the conclusion.

Lee is presently not affiliated with an academic institution and has the title of CEO of Quantum Energy Research Centre, a privately-held corporation based in Seoul.

The information surrounding the academic and career backgrounds of Lee is scant, but multiple local media outlets reported that Lee and the paper’s co-authors graduated from Korea University.

However, many scientists in and outside of Korea are skeptical about the research due to weak theoretical grounds and the discovery of some statistical errors.

The first version was filed on a preprint repository named arXiv on July 22, and the research team has since updated the manuscripts.

“My colleagues and I remain in a wait-and-see mode since the results need to be further tested,” said Lee Kwang-hyung, president of KAIST, the country’s prestigious research university on science and technology.

Even if LK-99 fails to be proven as a superconductor, the substance could have a commercial value, according to Jung Sung-chang, head of Edison Lab, an intellectual property consulting firm based in Daejeon.

“Even if the substance is not categorized as a superconductor that should exhibit zero resistivity and the expulsion of a magnetic field known as the Meissner effect, the discovery of a material with lower resistivity than conventional ones can have a great commercial potential,” said Jung who formerly worked at Korean Intellectual Property Office.

“But to be commercially relevant, the manufacturing cost should be attractive enough for corporations to adopt the new material,” he said.

Lee and co-authors filed four applications with Korean Intellectual Property Office for the intellectual property rights of what they call a superconducting ceramic compound. One of them is already registered.

“Registration of an intellectual property means that the proposed property had a novel approach or made an advancement from already existing properties,” Jung said.

The filing mentioned that the compound could be used for electrical motors, cables and magnetically levitating trains.

The impact of the preliminary research reverberated across stock markets.

Companies with proclaimed expertise in developing materials with lower electricity resistance hit record highs, although their relation with LK-99 is unclear. Among them are Kosdaq-listed SuNam and Kospi-listed Kiswire.

U.S. companies with a similar focus also lifted higher in recent days. For instance, American Superconductor saw its stock rocket by as much as 60 percent on Wednesday, although the company is not related to the authors and the Korean company.

BY PARK EUN-JEE [park.eunjee@joongang.co.kr]