Investigation into the nature behind the interesting half levitation behavior of claimed superconductor LK-99

TL;DR

This study investigates the half levitation behavior of LK-99, revealing it is more likely due to ferromagnetism rather than superconductivity, and provides methods to distinguish between ferromagnetic and diamagnetic levitation.

Contribution

The paper offers a detailed analysis of LK-99's levitation behavior, demonstrating it is probably ferromagnetic and not superconducting, and introduces guidelines to differentiate magnetic properties.

Findings

LK-99 samples exhibit ferromagnetic behavior rather than superconductivity.

Oxidation affects the levitation behavior of LK-99 samples.

Methods are provided to distinguish ferromagnetic from diamagnetic levitation.

Abstract

A recent article published by Lee et.al. claimed to have successfully achieved superconductivity at room temperature (RT) has become a topical issue. Besides the research paper, Lee and his team provided a demonstration video of LK-99 half levitating (HL) on a magnet. Such interesting HL appearance has drawn tremendous sensation both in academia and the network. However, the true identity of LK-99 still remains unclear, i.e., whether the HL behavior can necessarily indicate the diamagnetism behavior of the sample. Here, we fabricated our own LK-99 samples following the procedures reported by Lee et al. We found quite a few sample pieces showing the typical HL that is similar to those reported. Meanwhile, oxidation during the sample preparation was found to deleterious to acquiring HL in the sample, while furnace cooling or water quenching in the last step revealed little effect. However, our careful observations indicated that those HL pieces are more likely simple ferromagnetic. Then we conducted a comprehensive study on the behavior patterns of typical diamagnetism and ferromagnetic substances interacting with a Nd2Fe14B magnet, and provided instructions to distinguish the characteristics between ferromagnetic and diamagnetic to prevent misunderstanding of LK-99 like levitation behavior.