Allyson Fry-Petit
California State University-Fullerton, CA·Chemistry
Superconductors carry electricity with zero resistance, which makes them useful for medical imaging, efficient computing and magnetically levitated trains. Today they work only under extreme conditions, such as very low temperatures.
- Fields
Chemistry
Materials Science
Physics
- Topics
superconductivity
room-temperature superconductor
lead apatite
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Nov 2026
What they work on
- Reproduce the reported synthesis of LK-99, the claimed room-temperature superconductor, and use in situ diffraction during the reaction to identify every phase that forms, including unstable intermediates.
- Map the temperature and reaction conditions under which phases form in copper-doped lead apatite and related compounds, using real-time diffraction and total scattering measurements.
- Quench samples at conditions of interest and characterize them with high-resolution ex situ diffraction and total scattering to find phases that may be superconducting or ferromagnetic.
- Establish general structure–property relationships for lead apatite materials, linking their crystal structures to their electrical and magnetic behavior.
More about the research
In summer 2023, researchers reported LK-99, a material made of copper, lead and oxygen that seemed to superconduct and levitate over a magnet above room temperature. Other groups could not reproduce the result, possibly because the original sample was a complex mixture of compounds.
Why it matters
A superconductor that works near room temperature could make technologies such as medical imaging, efficient computing and levitating trains far easier to use. By determining which phases actually form when LK-99 and copper-doped lead apatites are made, this work could settle what produced the reported effects. It may also point chemists toward real superconducting or ferromagnetic phases in this family of materials.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Kenneth Poeppelmeier
Northwestern University, IL·Chemistry
Develop targeted hydrothermal, solvothermal and solid-state synthesis methods that control how anionic building units align in oxide and oxide-fluoride crystals, so that crystals form without inversion symmetry.
Daniel Bediako
University of California-Berkeley, CA·Chemistry·Early-career
Synthesize vanadium-intercalated TMD crystals, which have vanadium atoms inserted between layers, that are predicted to be altermagnets, using solid-state synthesis and crystal growth.
Daniel Fredrickson
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI·Chemistry
Develop computational tools to compare chemical pressure scaffolds, networks of overly compressed atom-to-atom contacts, across intermetallic crystal structures and connect them to material properties.
The school
California State University-Fullerton: 2 labs on PI Pages, $34M a year on research, 39 research doctorates a year.
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