South Korean metal companies experienced a significant rise in the stock market following the reported creation of a new room-temperature superconductor material.
If verified by the scientific community, this could impact various industries.
Local metal processing firms like Seowon and Sunam saw approximately 30% gains in the Seoul Stock Exchange, contrasting with the 0.42% drop in the Kospi index.
Meanwhile, SK Hynix gained 0.42%, and Samsung Electronics lost 1.57% in line with the general downward trend on Wall Street.
These stock increases are attributed to the publication of two scientific papers by researchers from South Korea’s Quantum Energy Research Centre at the end of July.
The papers on the virtual repository airXiv claimed the development of a new superconductor named LK-99 that operates at ambient temperature and pressure.
However, the articles are yet to be verified by other researchers, causing both immense interest and skepticism in the scientific community.
The US scientific journal Science noted the lack of details in the information provided by the researchers, adding that the alleged discoveries are being examined by Argonne National Laboratory, which plans to publish its conclusions soon.