Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

On Tuesday, local time, Nature announced the withdrawal of a high-profile paper published in March claiming to have discovered a superconductor that can work at room temperature.

As researchers who contributed to this work, they expressed the view that the published papers did not accurately reflect the origin of the materials studied, the experimental measurements carried out and the data processing basis applied. These problems undermine the integrity of published papers.

The paper was written by Ranga P. Diaz, a professor of mechanical engineering and physics at the University of Rochester in the United States. this is the second superconductor paper Diaz has been withdrawn by Nature in more than a year.

Diaz and his colleagues have studied room temperature superconductors, and there have been many previous papers on the subject, but none of them has been confirmed. However, the withdrawal also raised questions about why the magazine's editors agreed to publish a second paper after reviewing and withdrawing an early paper from the same research group.

A spokesman for Diaz said Professor Diaz denied allegations of research misconduct. "Professor Diaz intends to resubmit this scientific paper to a journal with a more independent editing program," the representative said. "

Superconductors unexpectedly became a hot topic on social networks this summer because another group of South Korean scientists also claimed to have discovered a room temperature superconductor called LK-99. A few weeks later, the excitement subsided because other scientists were unable to confirm the superconducting observations and came up with other reasonable explanations.

Although Professor Diaz's paper was published in a high-profile journal, his statement on room temperature superconductors did not arouse as much academic excitement as LK-99, because many scientists in the field are already skeptical of his findings.

In a paper published in March in the journal Nature, Diaz and his colleagues reported that they had found a material, a hydrogen hydride with nitrogen, that could conduct superconducts at room temperatures of 21 degrees Celsius. Although it still requires a pressure of 145,000 pounds per square inch, it is not difficult to achieve in the laboratory. The substance turns red when squeezed, so Diaz calls it "red matter" (redmatter) with matter from the Star Trek movie.

In October 2020, Nature published a similar paper by Diaz and his colleagues. The team says it has created a material of carbon, sulfur and hydrogen that exhibits superconductivity at a pressure of about 15 ℃ and about 267Gpa. The experiment was tried to repeat by several research teams around the world over the next two years, but none of them succeeded, and was eventually withdrawn and investigated in September 2022.

In August, physical Review KuaiBao withdrew a paper published by Diaz in 2021 describing the interesting electrical properties of another compound, manganese sulfide.

James Hamlin (James Hamlin), a professor of physics at the University of Florida, told the editor of the physical Review KuaiBao that the curve in a diagram describing manganese sulphide resistance in the paper looks similar to that in Diaz's doctoral thesis describing the behavior of another material.

Outside experts hired by physical Review KuaiBao also agreed that the data did look similar, so the paper was withdrawn. Unlike Nature's previous withdrawal, all nine of Diaz's co-authors agreed to withdraw. Diaz, the only objector, insists that the paper accurately describes the findings.

In May, Hamlin and Brad J. Ramshaw, a professor of physics at Cornell University, wrote to the editors of Nature to express their concerns about the hydrogen hydride data in Diaz's March paper.

After the physical Review KuaiBao withdrew the paper, most of the authors of the MH paper concluded that the research in their paper was also flawed.

In a letter dated September 8, eight of the 11 authors asked to withdraw their papers in the journal Nature. "Professor Diaz has not shown sincerity in preparing and submitting manuscripts," they told the editor of Nature. "

The authors of the letter include five graduate students working at Diaz's laboratory and Ashkan Salamat, a physics professor at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, who collaborated with Diaz on two previously withdrawn papers. Diaz and Salamat also founded Paranormal Materials, which aims to turn superconducting discoveries into commercial products.

Salamat, a former president and chief executive of the company, is no longer an employee of the company, and he did not respond to a request for comment on Nature's withdrawal statement.

In a notice of withdrawal released on Tuesday, Nature said that the eight authors who wrote the letter in September expressed the view: "the published papers do not accurately reflect the source of the materials investigated, the experimental measurements carried out and the data processing protocols used." These problems "undermine the integrity of published papers," the authors said.

Diaz and his former students and two other authors "have not yet indicated whether they agree to this withdrawal," the notice said. A spokeswoman for Nature said none of them responded to the proposal to withdraw the draft.

"this is a very frustrating thing," Karl Ziemelis, editor-in-chief of applied and physical sciences in Nature, said in a statement.

Zimelis defended the magazine's handling. "in fact, as often happens, our selected high-quality expert reviewers raised some questions about the initial submission, which were basically resolved in subsequent revisions," he said. this is how peer review works. "

He added: "what cannot be detected in the peer review process is whether the paper accurately reflects the research carried out."

For Ramshaw, the withdrawal proves it. "when you're studying other people's research, you always want to know if you see something wrong or overinterpret it," he says. "

Despite the disappointment of the withdrawal of LK-99 and Diaz's paper, Russell J. Hemley, a professor of physics and chemistry at the University of Illinois at Chicago, found in his experiments another material that can also become a superconductor under ultra-high pressure. He still believes in Diaz's discovery of superconductivity. In June, Helmley and his collaborators reported that they also measured a significant loss of resistance in a sample provided by Diaz. On Tuesday, Helmley said he remained confident that other scientists would repeat the discovery.

After the physical Review KuaiBao withdrew its paper, the University of Rochester confirmed that it had begun a "comprehensive investigation" by experts unrelated to the university. A university spokesman said the university had no plans to make the findings public.

The University of Rochester has deleted a video produced on YouTube in March, in which university management hailed Diaz's research as a breakthrough.

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