I've already seen some videos/images from the lesbian Soviet hedge chemist and some other amateur/non-lab repro attempts showing that if it's diamagnetism, it's much, much stronger than pyrolitic graphite. At least 15x stronger. Diamagnetism also wouldn't explain the resistivity, critical temp, critical current, and critical field graphs.
I think the realistic options at this point are:
1. Complete fraud, including opportunistic fraud by some online accounts who are faking partial replications.
2. Real superconductor of some kind, the papers are all fucked up because of the early leak by Kwon and internal Nobel jostling drama, and the production process is difficult, but fundamentally this is the real deal, RTAPS, but with a critical current and critical field that's lower than we would like, possibly (it's unclear what the measurements for these actually are).
3. They discovered a new type of material which is a very strong diamagnet, and then decided to fake the rest of a superconductor's properties because superconductivity is much more prestigious than a new powerful diamagnet. Replication efforts are having limited success with diamagnetism because it is actually diamagnetic.
I think the realistic options at this point are:
1. Complete fraud, including opportunistic fraud by some online accounts who are faking partial replications. 2. Real superconductor of some kind, the papers are all fucked up because of the early leak by Kwon and internal Nobel jostling drama, and the production process is difficult, but fundamentally this is the real deal, RTAPS, but with a critical current and critical field that's lower than we would like, possibly (it's unclear what the measurements for these actually are). 3. They discovered a new type of material which is a very strong diamagnet, and then decided to fake the rest of a superconductor's properties because superconductivity is much more prestigious than a new powerful diamagnet. Replication efforts are having limited success with diamagnetism because it is actually diamagnetic.