- [Narrator] Widespread floating trains.
Nuclear fusion.
Marty McFly's hoverboard.
- He's on a hoverboard.
- [Narrator] It sounds like the future
but many scientists say these types
of advances aren't as far away as we think.
They all hinge on one thing, a room-temperature,
ambient pressure superconductor, and in July,
some scientists claimed to have found just that,
sending stock prices for companies
with a perceived connection to superconductors soaring.
- A breakthrough like this
really could mean longer lasting batteries for our devices,
revolutionizing medical imaging.
It could mean more efficient electrical grids.
It could mean improved high speed trains.
There's almost no aspect
of our daily life that a room-temperature,
ambient pressure superconductor wouldn't touch
if commercially applied.
- [Narrator] That's why investors,
despite doubts surrounding the search,
are still backing the effort.
Here's where the science stands
and what it could take
to bring such a superconductor to market.
When electricity flows from one place to another,
it travels along some type of conductor, usually a metal.
Those conductors put up some resistance, which results
in some of the energy being lost as heat.
That's why your phone or computer can get really warm.
Superconductors eliminate that resistance
and can transmit energy without loss.
- Superconductors, obviously,
if they conduct electric current perfectly,
it means they're extremely efficient.
- [Narrator] But these materials typically only work
in extreme conditions,
temperatures as cold
as roughly negative 320 degrees Fahrenheit
or extremely high pressure.
- There's always an investment
to do the necessary cryogenics.
If you're using copper and it has a little bit of loss
but the superconductor is much more expensive
for most of your applications,
you might wanna use copper instead.
Just because you have a superconductor,
the question is whether it's gonna be useful or not.
- [Narrator] Because of that,
superconductors, as they exist today, are used
in limited circumstances, for example, MRI machines
but there's also been investment in broader uses.
The Departments of Energy and Homeland Security
have funded initiatives to create more resilient power grids
using superconducting cables, like one
in Chicago that uses liquid nitrogen to keep cables cool.
- Ultimately, the reason why people are so interested
in this space in terms of investment especially
is because unlocking a room-temperature
and pressure superconductor again,
would revolutionize medical imaging.
It would make it so that magnetically levitating trains
were more accessible, cheaper to build, more efficient.
It would make it so that our electrical grids
truly would become revolutionized.
- [Narrator] Because superconductors potentially
promise huge advances in technology,
finding one that can work at room-temperature
and ambient pressure has become a holy grail
for scientists and investors.
A group led by scientists at the University of Rochester
claimed to make a major breakthrough in March.
A superconductor made of rare-earth material combined
with nitrogen and hydrogen that they said worked
at roughly room temperature.
The study was peer reviewed
but the lead researcher has come under scrutiny.
The University of Rochester-led group
did not respond to requests for comment.
Then two other papers released in July
detailed a potential superconductor
called LK-99 that combined copper, lead,
phosphorus and oxygen
and worked at room temperature and ambient pressure.
Videos of the substance floating above a magnet,
a hallmark of superconductivity, circulated online.
But those papers, written by researchers who mostly worked
for the privately held Quantum Energy Research Center,
haven't yet been peer reviewed
and many scientists say LK-99 is just a magnet
rather than a superconducting material.
- Many groups had difficulty replicating the experiment.
- [Narrator] The Quantum Energy Research Center
didn't respond to requests for comment.
Still, the enthusiasm for the July research
triggered big stock swings for companies like SuNAM,
Mobiis and American Superconductor.
Before a room-temperature, ambient pressure superconductor
can be brought to market,
it needs to be replicated regularly in trials.
That's what Norman's group
at Argonne National Laboratory
is trying to do now with LK-99.
- It's gonna sort of take a while to sort out
what's actually going on there.
It opens up the space, right?
There's lots and lots of minerals out there,
very few that have been studied from a physics perspective.
Maybe there are other surprises out there waiting for us.
- [Narrator] Replicating results can take weeks or months,
if even possible.
Then its production needs to be scaled up,
which can take much longer.
- It's one thing having little microscopic samples
in your laboratory, it's another thing
to make kilometer-long wires.
We just don't know.
Until you know what the material is
and how easy it is to make,
and then it's like how can you wrap it
and make a wire out of it?
Until you know those things, it's really hard to figure out
what kind of lag will be from discovery to applications.
- [Narrator] The superconductor cable system used
for the power grid in Chicago took years
and approximately $19 million to implement.
- Any discovery or invention or change
in the field is ultimately net positive.
So it's almost like a nothing to lose,
everything to gain scenario.
It's not like they have spent decades researching this,
trying new recipes, and it has yielded no results.
So it's perhaps just a matter of time.
(pensive music)