Under pressure? Room temperature superconductivity paper retracted over data analysis
Questions over treatment of data led Nature to remove the paper over the authors’ objections
A ground-breaking paper claiming to show the first room-temperature superconductor has been retracted by the journal Nature over concerns around its data analysis, following allegations the results were manipulated.
Superconductors are materials that exhibit no electrical resistance and are useful for a host of applications, including NMR machines, quantum computing and particle accelerators. However, currently all superconducting materials require very cold temperatures (below 150K) or extremely high pressures. Room-temperature superconductors would revolutionise how we manipulate electrical charge, and are considered by some to be one of chemistry’s ‘holy grails’.