Nature, some of the prestigious journals in scientific publishing, on Tuesday retracted a high-profile paper it had revealed in March that claimed the invention of a superconductor that labored at on a regular basis temperatures.
It was the second superconductor paper involving Ranga P. Dias, a professor of mechanical engineering and physics on the College of Rochester in New York State, to be retracted by the journal in simply over a 12 months. It joined an unrelated paper retracted by one other journal during which Dr. Dias was a key writer.
Dr. Dias and his colleagues’ analysis is the newest in a protracted record of claims of room-temperature superconductors which have did not pan out. However the retraction raised uncomfortable questions for Nature about why the journal’s editors publicized the analysis after that they had already scrutinized and retracted an earlier paper from the identical group.
A spokesman for Dr. Dias mentioned that the scientist denied allegations of analysis misconduct. “Professor Dias intends to resubmit the scientific paper to a journal with a extra unbiased editorial course of,” the consultant mentioned.
First found in 1911, superconductors can appear virtually magical — they conduct electrical energy with out resistance. Nevertheless, no recognized supplies are superconductors in on a regular basis situations. Most require ultracold temperatures, and up to date advances towards superconductors that operate at larger temperatures require crushing pressures.
A superconductor that works at on a regular basis temperatures and pressures might discover use in M.R.I. scanners, novel digital gadgets and levitating trains.
Superconductors unexpectedly turned a viral subject on social networks over the summer time when a special group of scientists, in South Korea, additionally claimed to have found a room-temperature superconductor, named LK-99. Inside a few weeks, the joy died away after different scientists have been unable to verify the superconductivity observations and got here up with believable various explanations.
Despite the fact that it was revealed in a high-profile journal, Dr. Dias’s declare of a room-temperature superconductor didn’t set off euphoria like LK-99 did as a result of many scientists within the discipline already regarded his work with doubt.
In the Nature paper revealed in March, Dr. Dias and his colleagues reported that that they had found a fabric — lutetium hydride with some nitrogen added — that was in a position to superconduct electrical energy at temperatures of as much as 70 levels Fahrenheit. It nonetheless required strain of 145,000 kilos per sq. inch, which isn’t tough to use in a laboratory. The fabric took on a purple hue when squeezed, main Dr. Dias to nickname it “reddmatter” after a substance in a “Star Trek” film.
Lower than three years earlier, Nature revealed a paper from Dr. Dias and lots of the identical scientists. It described a special materials that they mentioned was additionally a superconductor though solely at crushing pressures of almost 40 million kilos per sq. inch. However different researchers questioned a few of the knowledge within the paper. After an investigation, Nature agreed, retracting the paper in September 2022 over the objections of the authors.
In August of this 12 months, the journal Bodily Evaluation Letters retracted a 2021 paper by Dr. Dias that described intriguing electrical properties, though not superconductivity, in one other chemical compound, manganese sulfide.
James Hamlin, a professor of physics on the College of Florida, informed Bodily Evaluation Letters’ editors that the curves in one of many paper’s figures describing electrical resistance in manganese sulfide seemed much like graphs in Dr. Dias’s doctoral thesis that described the habits of a special materials.
Outdoors specialists enlisted by the journal agreed that the info seemed suspiciously comparable, and the paper was retracted. Not like the sooner Nature retraction, all 9 of Dr. Dias’s co-authors agreed to the retraction. Dr. Dias was the lone holdout and maintained that the paper precisely portrayed the analysis findings.
In Could, Dr. Hamlin and Brad J. Ramshaw, a professor of physics at Cornell College, despatched editors at Nature their considerations in regards to the lutetium hydride knowledge within the March paper.
After the retraction by Bodily Evaluation Letters, many of the authors of the lutetium hydride paper concluded that the analysis from their paper was flawed too.
In a letter dated Sept. 8, eight of the 11 authors requested for the Nature paper to be retracted.
“Dr. Dias has not acted in good religion in regard to the preparation and submission of the manuscript,” they informed the Nature editors.
The writers of the letter included 5 current graduate college students who labored in Dr. Dias’s lab, in addition to Ashkan Salamat, a professor of physics on the College of Nevada, Las Vegas, who collaborated with Dr. Dias on the 2 earlier retracted papers. Dr. Dias and Dr. Salamat based Unearthly Supplies, an organization that was meant to show the superconducting discoveries into industrial merchandise.
Dr. Salamat, who was the corporate’s president and chief government, is now not an worker there. He didn’t reply to a request for touch upon the retraction.
Within the retraction discover revealed on Tuesday, Nature mentioned that the eight authors who wrote the letter in September expressed the view that “the revealed paper doesn’t precisely replicate the provenance of the investigated supplies, the experimental measurements undertaken and the data-processing protocols utilized.”
The problems, these authors mentioned, “undermine the integrity of the revealed paper.”
Dr. Dias and two different authors, former college students of his, “haven’t said whether or not they agree or disagree with this retraction,” the discover mentioned. A Nature spokeswoman mentioned they didn’t reply to the proposed retraction.
“This has been a deeply irritating state of affairs,” Karl Ziemelis, the chief editor for utilized and bodily sciences at Nature, mentioned in an announcement.
Mr. Ziemelis defended the journal’s dealing with of the paper. “Certainly, as is so usually the case, the extremely certified skilled reviewers we chosen raised quite a lot of questions in regards to the unique submission, which have been largely resolved in later revisions,” he mentioned. “That is how peer evaluation works.”
He added, “What the peer-review course of can’t detect is whether or not the paper as written precisely displays the analysis because it was undertaken.”
For Dr. Ramshaw, the retraction offered validation. “If you end up wanting into another person’s work, you at all times ponder whether you’re simply seeing issues or overinterpreting,” he mentioned.
The disappointments of LK-99 and Dr. Dias’s claims might not deter different scientists from investigating potential superconductors. Twenty years in the past, a scientist at Bell Labs, J. Hendrik Schön, revealed a collection of putting findings, together with novel superconductors. Investigations confirmed that he had made up most of his knowledge.
That didn’t stymie later main superconductor discoveries. In 2014, a bunch led by Mikhail Eremets, of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany, confirmed that hydrogen-containing compounds are superconductors at surprisingly heat temperatures when squeezed beneath ultrahigh pressures. These findings are nonetheless broadly accepted.
Russell J. Hemley, a professor of physics and chemistry on the College of Illinois Chicago who adopted up Dr. Eremets’s work with experiments that discovered one other materials that was additionally a superconductor at ultrahigh strain situations, continues to consider Dr. Dias’s lutetium hydride findings. In June, Dr. Hemley and his collaborators reported that that they had additionally measured the obvious vanishing {of electrical} resistance in a pattern that Dr. Dias had offered, and on Tuesday, Dr. Hemley mentioned he remained assured that the findings can be reproduced by different scientists.
After the Bodily Evaluation Letters retraction, the College of Rochester confirmed that it had began a “complete investigation” by specialists not affiliated with the college. A college spokeswoman mentioned that it had no plans to make the findings of the investigation public.
The College of Rochester has eliminated YouTube movies it produced in March that featured college officers lauding Dr. Dias’s analysis as a breakthrough.
