Superconductor Breakthrough Claims Traced to Seoul Basement Lab

In a residential area in southeastern Seoul is a red-brick, four-story building that looks like any other in the neighborhood. But a basement office there is home to the research center whose extraordinary claims about a breakthrough in superconductor technology have shocked the scientific community and captivated the world.

The location in Songpa district is the registered address of the Quantum Energy Research Centre, whose researchers Sukbae Lee and Ji-Hoon Kim, along with other South Korean experts, said in pre-publication papers posted last month that they have synthesized the world’s first superconductor known as LK-99 that is capable of conducting electricity with zero-resistance at room temperature with ambient pressure.