Space & Physics
Superconducting Saga: What happened to LK-99?
The community of condensed matter physicists was put under spotlight in the wake of a paper, triggering a frenzy like none other in recent times.
In July 2023, two South Korean experimental physicists, Lee Sukbae and Kim Ji-Hoon published a pre-print in arXiv, claiming discovery of superconductivity in a sample, occurring at room temperature.
The condensed matter physics community was put under spotlight in the wake of this paper, triggering a frenzy like none other in recent times.
The material dubbed, LK-99, after the initials of the South Korean physicists, promised nothing short of a revolution to the electronics industry.
But before I go further, let’s go through some superconductivity basics.
What are superconductors?
Basically, superconductivity is a macroscopic quantum phenomenon. Our story begins with two ground-breaking experiments.
In 1911, the Dutch physicist, Heike Onnes observed that a mercury wire dipped in liquid helium, offered zero resistance to the passage of electricity, when the temperature of the mercury was lowered to-269◦ C.
In 1937, Pyotr Kapitsa, John F. Allen and Don Misener discovered that at an even lower temperature close to -273◦ C, liquid helium-4 transformed into a superfluid. A superfluid’s an exotic fluid exhibiting zero viscosity.
Both these exotic phenomena of superfluidity and superconductivity are closely linked, though they’re not the same.
However, this effect would go for years without a solid theory, until the physicists’ trio, John Bardeen, Leon Cooper and John Schrieffer, put together a ‘complete’ microscopic theory, known as the ‘BCS theory’. The theory makes a number of quantitative predictions about the behavior of superconductors. Most importantly, it shows how pairs of electrons would couple to form Cooper pairs, overcoming mutual repulsion below a set critical temperature. Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer would go on to win the 1972’s Nobel Prize in Physics for this work.
As much as superconductors revolutionized the electronics industry in the 20th century, the temperatures at which this effect is commonly seen is in the same regime as outer space. It takes resources for laboratories to reach these temperatures. But imagine if nature showed us a material that can become a superconductor at room temperature …
The case for ‘room temperature’ superconductors
But you may be wondering what’s the big deal with room temperature superconductors anyway? For one, they’re promising an overnight revolution of sorts in the electronics industry. The approximately 7% loss of energy there is to pass currents through wires during transportation, can be brought down to near zero with room temperature superconductors. Another important use of these superconductors would be in the development of strong magnetic fields. Strong stable magnetic fields are used in MRI imaging and maglev trains.
Source: Ramon Salinero / Unsplash
This could make such technologies more accessible and cheaper to the public. Renewable energy generation from solar and wind power could see their efficiency rise with the help of room-temperature superconductors. The use of room-temperature superconductors could grow exponentially more after its discovery, even in applications we do not know yet. Think of the world today without any semiconductors, it would be tough to live without our LED lamps or solar panels. Similarly, room temperature superconductors could inexorably revolutionize our way of living for the better. I mean, who knows? Nobody knows! It’s yet to be invented.
Sukbae and Kim claimed that LK-99 displayed superconductivity when the temperature dropped below 127◦ C. They claimed to have observed zero resistance currents.
And that was all it took for social media savvy tech entrepreneurs to embark on a hype train, and spread the word on room temperature superconductors potentially being real at last. Except it’s not technically room temperature – for 127◦ C is way past the boiling point of water. But it’s much easier for laboratories to set up an experiment, investigate and replicate 127◦ C.
The dream fever isn’t abating away, but the proof really is in the pudding.
There’s nothing to say room temperature superconductors can’t exist. In fact, scientists who worked in producing these results have also shared this opinion in their work.
Conventional superconductivity – with extreme cold critical temperatures – was challenged back in 1986, when certain cuprate compounds such as yttirium barium copper oxide (or YBCO) were discovered. They have a higher critical temperature of -183◦ C, which is still very cold, but still warmer compared to helium-4. Such critical temperatures are outside the realm of the standard BCS theory, with the main mechanisms underpinning them being a topic of research.
The race for verification
After their paper was submitted in arXiv, Sukbae and Kim released a video of the levitating LK-99 sample on a magnet – a hallmark signature of the Meissner effect. The Meissner effect is a prediction of the standard BCS theory – when magnetic field lines are ousted from within the material itself.
They provided a detailed description of how LK-99 can be synthesised. This led materials labs from across the world to descend into a frenzy to try and replicate their results.
Some of the earliest research were done at the National Physics Laboratory (NPL) in New Delhi and Beihang University in Beijing (BU).
A team from the Southeast University in Nanjing, observed a near-zero resistance in LK-99 at -163 ◦ C. The team from Nanjing used an X-ray diffraction technique consistent with the work that the Korean scientists had published.
And then the theorists entered the fray. Sinead Griffin from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, US, performed calculations to suggest there really were telltale signs of room temperature super conductance in LK-99. Specifically, possible mechanisms for forming Cooper pairs were identified.
While these results were tantalising, they did not give conclusive evidence of superconductivity.
The Meissner effect – or what the South Koreans claimed was the Meissner effect- couldn’t be replicated in any other studies.
Griffin attained social media popularity after her tweets with over 14K followers on X. However, truth be told – Griffith wasn’t explicitly backing anybody – but was merely giving the South Koreans’ work a fair shot.
The last twist in the saga came when she said, “My paper did *not* prove nor give evidence of superconductivity”.
Realization dawns
And suddenly, it wasn’t going in LK-99’s favour at all. It turned out the research team at Southeast University in Nanjing, had made incorrect measurements using faulty instrumentation, meaning they were unreliable.
Whereas, the studies from India’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and Beihang University didn’t find report any superconductivity effect. In fact, it just seemed like dull, grey metal.
But the final series of nails in the coffin were the conclusive results by Yuan Li at Peking Institute, and Yi Jiang at the Donostia International Physics Centre, Spain. They proved beyond doubt that LK-99, as synthesised by the South Korean team, was a ferromagnet. Yuan Li also explained the levitating video of LK-99 pellets over a magnet was a result of ferromagnetism. He also showed the absence of superconducting current at low temperatures.
A ferrofluid exhibiting ferromagnetic properties; Source: Etienne Desclides / Unsplash
Science is often rife with controversies and debatable results. Many physicists have published unconfirmed, and published plagiarized work. Some notable examples include the alleged groundbreaking work of Jan Schön, who claimed discovery of organic transistors. Only to be charged with fraud after he made up his results, thus bringing him disrepute that brought an end to his scientific career pretty early on.
Then there was the work by Anshu Pandey and Dev Thapa on similar claims of room temperature superconductors that weren’t replicated.
Although it’s unfortunate that this saga ended so disappointingly with LK-99, I am not, in any manner suggestive of the fact that room-temperature superconductivity cannot exist.
Scientists who worked in producing these results have also shared this opinion in their work. Many scientists have however also shared the need to understand the results and related nitty gritty, before jumping the gun.
However, the collaboration amongst scientists at universities across the world, was focused on uncovering LK-99’s true properties.
It wasn’t just mere claims, backed by data, but also the peer-review process that helped redefine public discourse, and set the facts straight. And that had made all the difference.
Space & Physics
The Universe Is Ringing
How gravitational waves from colliding black holes are opening an entirely new way of exploring the cosmos
More than a century after Albert Einstein predicted them, gravitational waves are transforming astronomy. Ripples in space-time produced by colliding black holes and neutron stars are now being detected routinely, revealing a universe filled with violent mergers and cosmic echoes that have travelled billions of years to reach Earth.
A Ripple Across the Cosmos
When the densest objects in the universe collide, the impact does not simply end with the destruction or merger of stars. It sends ripples through the very fabric of space and time.
These ripples—known as gravitational waves—spread outward at the speed of light, crossing galaxies and cosmic voids for millions or even billions of years. By the time they reach Earth, they are unimaginably faint distortions of space itself.
Yet scientists have learned how to detect them.
A global network of observatories now monitors these tiny disturbances: the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the United States, the Virgo detector in Italy, and the Kamioka Gravitational Wave Detector (KAGRA) in Japan. Together, these instruments form one of the most sensitive scientific experiments ever constructed, capable of detecting distortions smaller than the width of a proton.
Through them, astronomers have begun to “listen” to the universe.
And what they are hearing is astonishing.
A Universe Filled with Collisions
The LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA (LVK) Collaboration has now released the latest compilation of gravitational-wave detections, to appear in a special issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters. The findings suggest that the cosmos is reverberating with collisions far more frequently than scientists once imagined.
The newly released Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog-4.0 (GWTC-4) includes detections from part of the observatories’ fourth observing run, conducted between May 2023 and January 2024.
In just nine months, the detectors recorded 128 new gravitational-wave candidates—signals that likely originated from extreme astrophysical events occurring hundreds of millions or billions of light-years away.
This newest batch more than doubles the size of the gravitational-wave catalog, which previously contained 90 candidates from earlier observing runs.
“The beautiful science that we are able to do with this catalog is enabled by significant improvements in the sensitivity of the gravitational-wave detectors as well as more powerful analysis techniques,” says Nergis Mavalvala, a member of the LVK collaboration and dean of the MIT School of Science.
What began in 2015 with the first historic detection has now become a steady stream of discoveries.
“In the past decade, gravitational wave astronomy has progressed from the first detection to the observation of hundreds of black hole mergers,” says Stephen Fairhurst, professor at Cardiff University and spokesperson for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. “These observations enable us to better understand how black holes form from the collapse of massive stars, probe the cosmological evolution of the universe and provide increasingly rigorous confirmations of the theory of general relativity.”
When Black Holes Dance
Most gravitational waves detected so far originate from binary black holes—pairs of black holes locked in orbit around each other.
Over time, gravity draws them closer together. As they spiral inward, they release enormous amounts of energy in the form of gravitational waves. In the final fraction of a second, the two objects merge in a titanic collision, forming a single, larger black hole.
These cosmic dances are among the most energetic events in the universe.
Black holes themselves are born when massive stars collapse at the end of their lives, compressing enormous amounts of matter into regions so dense that not even light can escape.
Many form in pairs. When they eventually collide, the event sends gravitational waves surging through space.
The first such detection, announced in 2016, confirmed a century-old prediction of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Since then, dozens—and now hundreds—of similar events have been observed.
But the latest catalog shows that the universe is far more diverse than scientists once believed.
Pushing the Edges of Black Hole Physics
The newly detected signals reveal a remarkable variety of cosmic systems.
Among them are the heaviest black hole binaries ever detected, systems where the masses of the two black holes are strikingly unequal, and pairs spinning at astonishing speeds.
“The message from this catalog is: We are expanding into new parts of what we call ‘parameter space’ and a whole new variety of black holes,” says Daniel Williams, a research fellow at the University of Glasgow. “We are really pushing the edges, and are seeing things that are more massive, spinning faster, and are more astrophysically interesting and unusual.”
One particularly dramatic signal—GW231123_135430—appears to have originated from two enormous black holes, each roughly 130 times the mass of the Sun. Most previously observed mergers involved black holes closer to 30 solar masses.
The extraordinary size of these objects suggests they may themselves have formed from earlier black hole mergers—a kind of cosmic generational chain.
Another remarkable event, GW231028_153006, revealed a binary in which both black holes are spinning at around 40 percent of the speed of light.
And in GW231118_005626, scientists detected an unusually uneven pair where one black hole is roughly twice as massive as the other.
“One of the striking things about our collection of black holes is their broad range of properties,” says Jack Heinzel, an MIT graduate student who contributed to the catalog’s analysis. “Some of them are over 100 times the mass of our sun, others are as small as only a few times the mass of the sun. Some black holes are rapidly spinning, others have no measurable spin.”
“We still don’t completely understand how black holes form in the universe,” he adds, “but our observations offer a crucial insight into these questions.”
Catching a Whisper in Space-Time
Detecting gravitational waves requires extraordinary precision.
The observatories use L-shaped interferometers with arms several kilometers long. Laser beams travel down these tunnels and reflect back to their source.
If a gravitational wave passes through the detector, it slightly stretches one arm while compressing the other, changing the distance the light travels by an incredibly tiny amount.
These changes can be smaller than one-thousandth the diameter of a proton.
Even with such advanced technology, detections remain unpredictable.
“You can’t ever predict when a gravitational wave is going to come into your detector,” says Amanda Baylor, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee who worked on the signal search. “We could have five detections in one day, or one detection every 20 days. The universe is just so random.”
Recent upgrades have dramatically improved the detectors’ reach. LIGO can now detect signals from neutron star collisions up to one billion light-years away, and black hole mergers far beyond that.
Testing Einstein’s Ultimate Theory
Gravitational waves are not only revealing spectacular cosmic events. They are also providing some of the most extreme tests ever conducted of Einstein’s theory of general relativity.
Black holes themselves are one of the most extraordinary predictions of the theory.
“Black holes are one of the most iconic and mind-bending predictions of general relativity,” says Aaron Zimmerman, associate professor of physics at the University of Texas at Austin.
When two black holes collide, he explains, they “shake up space and time more intensely than almost any other process we can imagine observing.”
One particularly powerful signal—GW230814_230901—allowed scientists to analyze the structure of the gravitational wave in exceptional detail.
“So far, the theory is passing all our tests,” Zimmerman says. “But we’re also learning that we have to make even more accurate predictions to keep up with all the data the universe is giving us.”
Measuring the Expansion of the Universe
Gravitational waves are also becoming powerful tools for answering one of cosmology’s biggest questions: how fast the universe is expanding.
Astronomers measure this expansion using the Hubble constant, but different methods have produced conflicting results.
Gravitational waves offer an independent approach.
“Merging black holes have a really unique property: We can tell how far away they are from Earth just from analyzing their signals,” says Rachel Gray, a lecturer at the University of Glasgow.
“So, every merging black hole gives us a measurement of the Hubble constant, and by combining all of the gravitational wave sources together, we can vastly improve how accurate this measurement is.”
Using the current gravitational-wave catalog, scientists estimate that the universe is expanding at roughly 76 kilometers per second per megaparsec.
For now, the uncertainty remains large—but future detections could sharpen the measurement significantly.
Listening to the Future
Only a decade ago, gravitational waves were purely theoretical signals.
Today, they are transforming astronomy.
With every new detection, scientists gain another glimpse into the hidden life of the universe: the birth of black holes, the evolution of galaxies, and the behavior of gravity under the most extreme conditions imaginable.
“Each new gravitational-wave detection allows us to unlock another piece of the universe’s puzzle in ways we couldn’t just a decade ago,” says Lucy Thomas, a postdoctoral researcher at the Caltech LIGO Lab.
“It’s incredibly exciting to think about what astrophysical mysteries and surprises we can uncover with future observing runs.”
The instruments on Earth are quiet, their lasers moving silently down vacuum tunnels. But far beyond our galaxy, black holes continue to collide.
And with each collision, the universe sends out another ripple—another echo across the cosmos—waiting for us to hear it.
Space & Physics
NASA’s Artemis II Captures Stunning ‘Earthset’ Over the Moon
NASA’s Artemis II crew captures a rare Earthset over the Moon, revealing lunar basins, craters, and Earth’s night-day divide.
NASA’s Artemis II mission has captured a striking new perspective of the Moon, showing Earth setting beyond the lunar horizon in a rare and visually dramatic moment from deep space.
The image, taken on April 6, 2026, at 6:41 p.m. EDT by the Artemis II crew during their journey around the far side of the Moon, reveals Earth partially dipping behind the Moon’s curved limb—an event often described as an “Earthset.”
A Geological Snapshot of the Moon
Beyond its visual impact, the image offers a detailed look at the Moon’s complex surface.
The Orientale basin, one of the Moon’s most prominent impact structures, is visible along the edge of the lunar surface. Nearby, the Hertzsprung Basin appears as faint concentric rings, partially disrupted by the younger Vavilov crater, which sits atop the older geological formation.
Also visible are chains of secondary craters—linear indentations formed by debris ejected during the massive impact that created the Orientale basin.
Artemis II: Earth in Shadow and Light
The photograph also captures Earth in a moment of contrast.
The darkened portion of the planet is in nighttime, while the illuminated side reveals swirling cloud formations over Australia and the Oceania region, offering a reminder of Earth’s dynamic atmosphere even from hundreds of thousands of kilometres away.
Artemis II: A New Era of Lunar Exploration
The Artemis II mission marks a major step in NASA’s return to the Moon, carrying astronauts on a crewed journey around the lunar surface for the first time in over five decades.
Images like this not only provide scientific insights into lunar geology but also offer a powerful visual connection between Earth and its nearest celestial neighbour—highlighting both the scale of space exploration and the fragility of our home planet.
Space & Physics
MIT Develops System to Boost Data Centre Efficiency by Up to 94%
MIT researchers develop Sandook, a system that boosts data centre efficiency by up to 94% without new hardware, improving SSD performance.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a new system that significantly improves data centre efficiency by optimising the performance of storage devices, potentially reducing the need for additional hardware.
The system, called Sandook, addresses a persistent challenge in modern data centres—underutilisation of storage devices due to performance variability. By simultaneously tackling multiple sources of inefficiency, the approach delivers substantial performance gains compared to traditional methods.
Data Centre Efficiency: Addressing a Hidden Bottleneck
In data centres, multiple storage devices such as solid-state drives (SSDs) are often pooled together so that applications can share resources. However, differences in device performance mean that slower drives can limit overall system efficiency.
MIT researchers found that these inefficiencies stem from three key factors: hardware variability across devices, conflicts between read and write operations, and unpredictable slowdowns caused by internal processes like garbage collection.
To overcome this, the team developed Sandook, a software-based system designed to manage these issues in real time.
Two-Tier Intelligent Architecture
The system uses a two-tier architecture, combining a global controller that distributes tasks across devices with local controllers that react quickly to performance slowdowns.
This structure allows Sandook to dynamically balance workloads, rerouting tasks away from devices experiencing delays and optimising performance across the entire system.
The system also profiles the behaviour of individual SSDs, enabling it to anticipate slowdowns and adjust workloads accordingly.
Significant Performance Gains
When tested on real-world tasks such as database operations, AI model training, image compression, and data storage, Sandook demonstrated major improvements.
The system increased throughput by between 12 percent and 94 percent compared to conventional methods, while also improving overall storage utilisation by 23 percent. It enabled SSDs to achieve up to 95 percent of their theoretical maximum performance—without requiring specialised hardware.
A More Sustainable Approach
Researchers emphasised that improving efficiency is critical given the cost and environmental impact of data centre infrastructure.
“There is a tendency to want to throw more resources at a problem to solve it, but that is not sustainable in many ways. We want to be able to maximize the longevity of these very expensive and carbon-intensive resources,” said Gohar Chaudhry, lead author of the study, ina media statement.
“With our adaptive software solution, you can still squeeze a lot of performance out of your existing devices before you need to throw them away and buy new ones,” she added.
Unlocking Untapped Potential
The system also addresses the challenge of inconsistent device behaviour over time.
“I can’t assume all SSDs will behave identically through my entire deployment cycle. Even if I give them all the same workload, some of them will be stragglers, which hurts the net throughput I can achieve,” Chaudhry explained.
By continuously adjusting workloads, Sandook ensures that even underperforming devices contribute effectively without dragging down overall performance.
Researchers say the system could be further enhanced by integrating new storage technologies and adapting to predictable workloads such as artificial intelligence applications.
“Our dynamic solution can unlock more performance for all the SSDs and really push them to the limit. Every bit of capacity you can save really counts at this scale,” Chaudhry said.
Implications
As demand for data processing continues to surge, innovations like Sandook could play a critical role in making data centres more efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally sustainable—without requiring massive infrastructure expansion.
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