Research on the superconduct: Scientists with misconduct leaves university

Research on the superconduct: Scientists with misconduct leaves university

Ranga Dias, once a promising star in the area of ​​the superconduct, has been involved in a public scandal for two years and is no longer employed by his university.

Dias claimed that he had Supaliter Discovered-Materials in which electrons can flow without resistance-which should function under high pressure and at room temperature. Earlier materials of this type only worked at ultra -low temperatures, which was impractical for use in real devices. These alleged breakthroughs catapulted dias to fame and brought him millions of research funds. However, after physicists examined the extraordinary results and expressed concerns about the journals in which they were published, Several from Dias' Papers . An investigation by the University of Rochester in New York, where Dias was busy, came to the conclusion that he had committed extensive misconduct , including data falsification.

The Wall Street Journal and Nature’s news team already reported that the university administration had recommended to dismiss Dias who had no tenure before the end of his contract in June 2025. Now Dias is no longer at the university, although it did not want to clarify whether it was released. "Ranga Dias is no longer an employee of the University of Rochester and has no research activities associated with the university," said a spokesman for the university in a statement. Dias did not respond to a request for a comment.

The slide scandal threw a shadow over the field of high-pressure supercondition, but in particular affected his former doctoral students who commented on nature but wanted to remain anonymous, out of concern for their careers. "I am relieved that we finally have clarity on this topic, although I am very disappointed that it took so long," said one of them. They added that they “expect a public explanation of the University of Rochester, which explains which guidelines have failed”, which has lasted the controversy for so long.

A spokesman for the university said that the university supports the students "who are affected by Ranga Dias's research deficiency" and that "our guidelines for research deficiency behavior check and updated".

under investigation

Dias started as a professor at the University of Rochester to freshly from a post -doctoral scholarship at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he claimed to have generated metallic hydrogen. In theory, if it is compressed on the center of the ground, hydrogen should pass from an insulating gas into a super -conducting metal. The results were never reproduced, and Many scientists doubt about it .

At the University of Rochester, Dias turned to other high-pressure supercorders. In September 2020 he published a groundbreaking study in Nature 1 Supral ladder is at room temperature. And in March 2023 he published another in Nature 2 in which a connection from luty and nitrogen was pressed at 100 times lower When CSH is a superconductor at room temperature - conditions that are even more practical for commercial use. (The Nature news team acts regardless of the team of specialist journals.)

After the first papers were published, Dias' star climbed and Rochester doubled his salary. At the same time, Jorge Hirsch, a theorist at the University of California, San Diego, asked questions that led to three studies at the university. However, none found evidence of misconduct. Meanwhile, the editors of the Nature trade Journal withdrew the CSH paper after they have consulted independent specialists for checking, and these specialists found evidence of data falsification.

Data in the Paper of 2023 also aroused questions in the research community, and Dias' former doctoral students contacted the Nature team this year with concerns about the validity of the results. It was withdrawn in November.

An investigator, James Hamlin, a physicist for high -pressure at the University of Florida in Gainesville, brought his concerns to the National Science Foundation (NSF, one of the main financiers of science in the USA, which granted DIAS grants). At the order of the NSF, Rochester initiated a comprehensive examination for misconduct.

Three external investigators who were commissioned by the university found that slides were very likely to commit research behavior in 16 out of 16 accusations that they tested. Public records of the NSF show that a scholarship granted by the authority on DIAS was canceled in the amount of around $ 800,000 after the examination.

researchers shared their thoughts about Dias ’departure from Rochester with the news team. "Did the system work?" Asks Peter Armitage, a researcher for condensed matter at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. "Yes, in the end, but many institutions let us down on the way there." He points out that Rochester has overlooked problems in the early studies and that Nature has published a second paper from Dias after the first has been withdrawn.

The Nature Journal team declined a comment.

case completed?

Dias has the validity of its superconductor research In social media , however, does not publish any further evidence to support. And independent teams have not been able to reproduce the results since the Rochester's examination results were published. In June another by Dias' Papers, which was published in the journal Physical Review Letters and claimed to have created another high-temperature high-pressure superconductor, 3 . This increases the number of its withdrawals to five.

What slides will do now remains unclear, but according to reports of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle Dia's continues to work at Unearhly Materials, its company based in Rochester, which aims to develop new suprals. In 2022, the company received $ 15 million in financing from the London-based venture capital group Plural. A spokesman for Plural did not want to comment on Dias' misconduct, and after he had received questions from the Nature institution team for this story, references to DIAS disappeared from the company's website.

1. Snider, E. et al. Nature 586, 373–377 (2020); Withdrawal 610, 804 (2022).

   Google Scholar

2. Dasenbrock-Gammon, N. et al. Nature 615, 244–250 (2023); Withdrawal 624, 460 (2023).

   Google Scholar

3. Snider, E. et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 117003 (2021); Withdrawal 132, 249901 (2024).

   Google Scholar

Download references