Paul C. W. Chu1
University of Houston1
Superconductivity has been an ever-self-reinvigorating discipline since its discovery in 1911. It continues to generate excitement in science, materials, and technologies. One of the obvious hurdles to its full fruition in technology is to bring its transition temperature T<sub>c</sub> to room temperature. In this talk, I shall first briefly review the impressive advancements made in low-temperature superconductivity (LTS) and high-temperature superconductivity (HTS) before the arrival of room-temperature superconductivity (RTS). Accompanying the advancements made in superconductivity science and technology over the last century, a solid experimental framework concerning the search, development, and even authentication of new discoveries has been established. All these can serve as valuable references in the infancy of RTS research. In this spirit, we will comment on the current status of rare-earth hydride RTS and present our preliminary negative results on Lu-N-H and LK-99, the two most studied materials in the search for RTS in the last few months, although several reports of more negation than affirmation have appeared. However, I do believe that when old wishes are dashed, new hopes will arise.<br/><br/>Research is supported in part by the Enterprise Science Fund of Intellectual Ventures Management, LLC; the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research Grants No. FA9550-15-1-0236 and No.FA9550-20-1-0068; the T. L. L. Temple Foundation; the John J. and Rebecca Moores Endowment; and the State of Texas through the Texas Center for Superconductivity at the University of Houston.<br/><br/>Collaborators: L. Z. Deng, Z. Wu, T. Habamahoro, T. Bontke, D. Schulze, T. W. Kuo, and M. Gooch