Observation of abnormal resistance-temperature behavior along with diamagnetic transition in Pb$_{10-x}$Cu$_x$(PO$_4$)$_6$O-based composite

Abstract

Recently, Sukbae Lee et al.reported that material Pb$_{10-x}$Cu$_x$(PO$_4$)$_6$O (LK-99) has a series of characteristics of room temperature superconductors, including diamagnetic transition, resistance jump, nearly zero-resistance, magnetic field-dependent IV characteristics and so on (10.6111/JKCGCT.2023.33.2.061, arXiv:2307.12008, arXiv:2307.12037). However, whether LK-99 is really a room temperature superconductor is still controversial. On the one hand, some people think that the relatively weak diamagnetism of LK-99 reported by Sukbae Lee et al. is not the Meissner effect. On the other hand, there are doubts about the authenticity of its zero-resistance test results. Global replication studies have shown that LK-99 does have a large diamagnetic (arXiv:2308.01516), and also found a zero-resistance behavior at a low temperature of 110 $^\circ$K (arXiv:2308.01192). However, up to now, there is still no direct reproducible evidence to support Sukbae Lee et al.'s conclusion that LK-99 is a room temperature superconductor. Here, a distinct resistance jump was observed at about 387 $^\circ$K under ambient pressure in our experiment for unclear reason including possible impurity's contribution. The overall resistance of the test LK-99 sample still shows semiconductivity, and the resistance cannot really drop to zero. Our findings indicate that to identify the true potential of LK-99, high quality crystals without impurity are very important.