Me—Ph.D. in solid state materials chemistry. Been out of the game for a while. Less understanding of physics than some other commenters but have a different perspective that might be useful.
My first thought is that they have a minority phase; the samples are likely ~99% LK99 and ~1% unknown phase with weird properties. You can see it in the video; part of the specimen is levitating but a corner of it isn’t.
The second thing I would do is try to make a bunch of variants with slightly different compositions to identify the minority phase.
The first thing I would do is try to make versions with different amounts of hydrogen. Hydrogen is ubiquitous, diffuses readily into and out of most materials, and is invisible to most materials analysis techniques, but it can have a profound effect on a material’s properties. If you get different properties by annealing the sample under high-pressure hydrogen*, you’re on the right track.
*For safety’s sake you would typically use forming gas, a non-flammable mixture of hydrogen with nitrogen (or sometimes argon). Ammonia is also sometimes used but is more dangerous.
Me—Ph.D. in solid state materials chemistry. Been out of the game for a while. Less understanding of physics than some other commenters but have a different perspective that might be useful.
My first thought is that they have a minority phase; the samples are likely ~99% LK99 and ~1% unknown phase with weird properties. You can see it in the video; part of the specimen is levitating but a corner of it isn’t.
The second thing I would do is try to make a bunch of variants with slightly different compositions to identify the minority phase.
The first thing I would do is try to make versions with different amounts of hydrogen. Hydrogen is ubiquitous, diffuses readily into and out of most materials, and is invisible to most materials analysis techniques, but it can have a profound effect on a material’s properties. If you get different properties by annealing the sample under high-pressure hydrogen*, you’re on the right track.
*For safety’s sake you would typically use forming gas, a non-flammable mixture of hydrogen with nitrogen (or sometimes argon). Ammonia is also sometimes used but is more dangerous.