Physicists Ranga Dias and Ashkan Salamat are facing controversy as their paper claims the discovery of a room temperature superconductor has been retracted by Nature. This is the third high-profile retraction involving the two scientists. The retraction was requested by eight co-authors who stated that the paper did not accurately reflect the research. Dias is also facing allegations of plagiarism. The superconductor, a material that carries electrical currents with zero resistance, was claimed to operate at room temperature and relatively low pressure. However, the scientific community has expressed skepticism about the findings.
Controversial Superconductivity Paper Retracted
A controversial paper claiming the discovery of a superconductor that operates at room temperature and relatively low pressure has been retracted by the scientific journal Nature. The retraction was requested by eight co-authors who stated that the published paper did not accurately reflect the provenance of the investigated materials, the experimental measurements undertaken, and the data-processing protocols applied. This is the third high-profile retraction of a paper by the two lead authors, physicists Ranga Dias at the University of Rochester in New York and Ashkan Salamat at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV).
Early Scepticism and Criticism
The report by Dias and Salamat was met with scepticism from the start. Superconductors are important in many applications, but their use has been limited by the need to keep them at extremely low temperatures. The dream of researchers has been to find a material that exhibits superconductivity without any refrigeration. However, specialists in the field were skeptical of the paper by Dias and Salamat, due to controversies surrounding the team and the quality of the paper. Critics took issue with measurements of the material’s electrical resistance, questioning whether the property truly dropped to zero, or whether the authors had manipulated the data.
This year’s report by Dias and Salamat is the second significant claim of superconductivity to crash and burn in 2023. In July, a separate team at a start-up company in Korea described an apparent room temperature superconductor named LK-99 formed from copper, lead, phosphorus, and oxygen — that they said showed superconductivity at normal pressures and at temperatures up to at least 127 °C (400 kelvin). There was much excitement and many attempts to reproduce the results, but researchers quickly reached a consensus that the material was not a superconductor at all.
Questions About the Editorial Review Process
The publication of the paper has raised questions about the editorial review process at Nature. Critics wonder why the issues with the paper were not caught during the review process. Karl Ziemelis, chief physical sciences editor at Nature, stated that the peer-review process cannot detect whether the paper accurately reflects the research as it was undertaken. He added that decisions about what to accept for publication are not always easy to make, and that the journal strives to take an unbiased position.
The Impact of the Retraction
The paper’s retraction has had a significant impact on the field of superconductivity research. Some researchers have expressed concern that the controversies surrounding Dias and Salamat could cast a shadow over the credibility of the field in general. However, others believe that the incident will not affect funding for superconductivity research but may lead to more careful reviews. There are also concerns that the controversies have made it harder to recruit students to work on superconductors.
Ongoing Investigations and Future of Superconductivity Research
The University of Rochester has confirmed that it has launched an investigation into the integrity of Dias’s work. The university’s spokesperson did not answer questions about whether the institution has yet disciplined Dias. UNLV did not answer queries about whether Salamat is being investigated. Despite the controversies, many researchers remain optimistic about the future of superconductivity research. They believe that the field is healthy and that serious researchers continue to do amazing and interesting work.
“It is at this point hardly surprising that the team of Dias and Salamat has a third high-profile paper being retracted,” says Paul Canfield, a physicist at Iowa State University in Ames and at Ames National Laboratory.
“Virtually every serious condensed-matter physicist I know saw right away that there were serious problems with the work,” says Peter Armitage, an experimental physicist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
“The highly qualified expert reviewers we selected raised a number of questions about the original submission, which were largely resolved in later revisions,“ says Karl Ziemelis, chief physical sciences editor at Nature. “What the peer-review process cannot detect is whether the paper as written accurately reflects the research as it was undertaken.”
“Decisions about what to accept for publication are not always easy to make,” Ziemelis continues. “And there may be conflicts, but we strive to take an unbiased position and to ensure the interests of the community always drive our deliberations.”
“You get either an insulator or an extremely poor metal,” says Artem Oganov, a materials scientist at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Moscow — not a superconductor.
Canfield says that the Dias–Salamat collaboration has spread a “foul vapour” over the field, which “is scaring young researchers and funding agencies away”.
“I have some colleagues who simply are afraid that this case of Dias puts a shadow of doubt on the credibility of our field in general,” Eremets says.
“I do not think it will affect the funding for superconductivity research other than more careful reviews, which is not necessarily bad,” says Ho-Kwang Mao, director of the Center for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research in Beijing.
“Actually, it seems more easy to get funding for the research of superconductivity since some government officials seem to be influenced by the expectation of a room-temperature superconductor,” says Hai-Hu Wen, director of the Center for Superconducting Physics and Materials at Nanjing University in China.
“We face a serious communication problem, to make people understand that the field is healthy — that although there may be some bad apples, the community’s standards are much higher,” says Lilia Boeri, a physicist at the Sapienza University of Rome.
“Serious people continue to do amazing and interesting work,” Armitage says. “Sure, they can be disheartened by this nonsense, but it won’t stop the science.”
Quick Summary
A controversial paper claiming the discovery of a room-temperature superconductor has been retracted by Nature, marking the third high-profile retraction of a paper by lead authors, physicists Ranga Dias and Ashkan Salamat. The retraction, requested by eight co-authors, cites inaccuracies in the provenance of the investigated materials, experimental measurements, and data-processing protocols, undermining the integrity of the published paper.
- Physicist Ranga Dias from the University of Rochester and Ashkan Salamat from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, have had a third high-profile paper retracted. The paper claimed the discovery of a superconductor that could operate at room temperature and relatively low pressure.
- Eight co-authors requested the retraction, stating that the paper did not accurately reflect the research conducted.
- This is the latest in a series of retractions involving Dias and Salamat, with previous papers withdrawn by Nature and Physical Review Letters.
- Dias is also under investigation for alleged plagiarism in his PhD thesis.
- The retracted paper claimed the creation of a compound made of hydrogen, lutetium, and small amounts of nitrogen that was a superconductor at temperatures up to 21 °C when kept at a pressure of around 1 gigapascal.
- The retraction and allegations have raised concerns about the credibility of the field of superconductivity research. However, some experts believe it will lead to more careful reviews and won’t stop the science.
- Superconductors are important in many applications such as qubits, including magnetic resonance imaging machines and particle colliders, but their use has been limited by the need to keep them at extremely low temperatures.