One thing to add, the original sample was theorized to be superconductive due to the magnetic levitation, not a measurement of it’s resistance. In truth, “diamagnetic semiconductors” exhibit a similar levitation but without the lack of resistance; it’s now theorized that’s what the original authors experienced. The initial paper was also released with slim details, a lack of peer review, and a lot of unknowns. It’s possible that “doped with copper” is nuanced, and if you made 100 samples of this with different doping at an atomic level, you would get different results. That would mean “LK99” is easy to make, but “LK99 doped with copper to exactly achieve superconductivity at room temperature and pressure” is NOT easy to make, and we may not even have the tech to dope it precisely enough to be useful.
The more likely outcome is research into a new doping technique which leads to material meta-science that could, one day, get a superconductor with practical properties. But this was sort of hyped as “a room temp/pressure superconductor that any mid-tier lab could make” which is just false…there are youtube science channels out there synthesizing the stuff and it’s just not what was “advertised.”
One thing to add, the original sample was theorized to be superconductive due to the magnetic levitation, not a measurement of it’s resistance. In truth, “diamagnetic semiconductors” exhibit a similar levitation but without the lack of resistance; it’s now theorized that’s what the original authors experienced. The initial paper was also released with slim details, a lack of peer review, and a lot of unknowns. It’s possible that “doped with copper” is nuanced, and if you made 100 samples of this with different doping at an atomic level, you would get different results. That would mean “LK99” is easy to make, but “LK99 doped with copper to exactly achieve superconductivity at room temperature and pressure” is NOT easy to make, and we may not even have the tech to dope it precisely enough to be useful.
The more likely outcome is research into a new doping technique which leads to material meta-science that could, one day, get a superconductor with practical properties. But this was sort of hyped as “a room temp/pressure superconductor that any mid-tier lab could make” which is just false…there are youtube science channels out there synthesizing the stuff and it’s just not what was “advertised.”