“The world record at 15 degrees” was the title of “Spektrum.de” in 2020 for a paper that announced a breakthrough in high-temperature superconductivity. Criticisms of the study evaluation have already been found in this article. Since then, this has been condensed to That “Nature” now withdrew the study against the will of the authors at the time.
The research group led by Ranga Dias of the University of Rochester reported in 2020 that they had succeeded in producing superconductivity at 15 °C with a compound made of hydrogen, sulfur and carbon – at 2.6 million atm pressures at the same time. The team caused this tremendous pressure with the help of a diamond press machine. So the material was far from suitable for everyday use, but many experts celebrated the result as a breakthrough: room-temperature superconductivity should one day ensure that electricity can flow without loss, even beyond special applications, because it is eliminated electrical resistance.
Most of the conventional superconductors discovered so far only acquire this property at very low temperatures, above minus 200°C. Even the high-temperature superconductors discovered since the 1980s still have to be cooled with liquid nitrogen to be able to conduct electricity without resistance.
However, criticism emerged shortly after the publication in «Nature». Because the evidence that a substance is superconducting does not come from the measured electrical resistance alone. It is also important that the superconductor displaces an externally applied magnetic field from its interior. Verifying this is very difficult with a diamond anvil cell, as the material in it is difficult to examine for this property – especially since the sample is so small.
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