the within story of deception in a rising star’s physics lab
In 2020, Ranga Dias was an up-and-coming star of the physics world. A researcher on the College of Rochester in New York, Dias achieved widespread recognition for his declare to have found the primary room-temperature superconductor, a cloth that conducts electrical energy with out resistance at ambient temperatures. Dias revealed that discovering in a landmark Nature paper1.
Almost two years later, that paper was retracted. However not lengthy after, Dias introduced a good larger outcome, additionally revealed in Nature: one other room-temperature superconductor2. Not like the earlier materials, the newest one supposedly labored at comparatively modest pressures, elevating the attractive chance of functions comparable to superconducting magnets for medical imaging and highly effective laptop chips.
Most superconductors function at extraordinarily low temperatures, beneath 77 kelvin (−196 °C). So attaining superconductivity at room temperature (about 293 Okay, or 20 °C) could be a “outstanding phenomenon”, says Peter Armitage, a condensed-matter researcher at Johns Hopkins College in Baltimore, Maryland.
However Dias is now notorious for the scandal that surrounds his work. Nature has since retracted his second paper2 and lots of different analysis teams have tried and failed to duplicate Dias’s superconductivity outcomes. Some researchers say the debacle has brought about critical hurt. The scandal “has broken careers of younger scientists — both within the area, or considering to enter the sector”, says Paul Canfield, a physicist at Iowa State College in Ames.
Why a blockbuster superconductivity claim met a wall of scepticism
Earlier reporting by The Wall Street Journal, Science and Nature’s news team has documented allegations that Dias manipulated knowledge, plagiarized substantial parts of his thesis and tried to impede the investigation of one other paper by fabricating knowledge.
Three earlier investigations into Dias’s superconductivity work by the College of Rochester didn’t discover proof of misconduct. However final summer season, the college launched a fourth investigation, led by specialists exterior to the college. In August 2023, Dias was stripped of his college students and laboratories. That fourth investigation is now full and, in accordance with a college spokesperson, the exterior specialists confirmed that there have been “knowledge reliability considerations” in Dias’s papers.
Now, Nature’s information workforce reveals new particulars about how the scandal unfolded.
The information workforce interviewed a number of of Dias’s former graduate college students, who have been co-authors of his superconductivity analysis. The people requested anonymity as a result of they have been involved in regards to the unfavorable impression on their careers. Nature’s information workforce verified scholar claims with corroborating paperwork; the place it couldn’t achieve this, the information workforce relied on the truth that a number of, impartial scholar accounts have been in settlement.
The information workforce additionally obtained paperwork related to the acceptance of the 2 Nature papers and their subsequent retractions. (Nature’s information and journal groups are editorially impartial.)
The investigation reveals contemporary particulars about how Dias distorted the proof for room-temperature superconductivity — and signifies that he hid data from his college students, manipulated them and shut them out of key steps within the analysis course of. The investigation additionally reveals, for the primary time, what occurred in the course of the peer-review course of for Dias’s second Nature paper on superconductivity. Dias didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark.
Collectively, the proof raises questions on why the issues in Dias’s lab didn’t immediate stronger motion, and sooner, by his collaborators, by Nature’s journal workforce and by his college.
Zero resistance
Dias got here to the College of Rochester in 2017, contemporary from a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the place he labored underneath physicist Isaac Silvera. “He’s not solely a really proficient scientist, however he’s an sincere individual,” Silvera advised Nature’s information workforce.
As soon as Dias settled at Rochester, he pursued high-temperature superconductivity. Three years earlier, the sector had been electrified when researchers in Germany found superconductivity in a type of hydrogen sulfide with the formulation H3S at 203 Okay (−70 °C) and at extraordinarily excessive pressures3. This was a a lot greater temperature than any superconductor had achieved earlier than, which gave researchers hope that room-temperature superconductivity could possibly be across the nook.
Dias proposed that including carbon to H3S may result in superconductivity at even greater temperatures.
Ranga Dias on the College of Rochester, New York.Credit score: Lauren Petracca/New York Occasions/Redux/eyevine
His former graduate college students say they synthesized samples of carbon, sulfur and hydrogen (CSH), however didn’t take measurements {of electrical} resistance or magnetic susceptibility that confirmed superconductivity. When a superconducting materials is cooled previous a vital temperature, its electrical resistance drops sharply to zero, and the fabric shows a equally sharp change in its magnetic properties, known as the Meissner impact. College students say they didn’t observe these key indicators of superconductivity in CSH.
Due to this, college students say they have been shocked when Dias despatched them a manuscript on 21 July 2020 saying the invention of room-temperature superconductivity in CSH. E-mails seen by the information workforce present that the scholars had little time to overview the manuscript: Dias despatched out a draft at 5.13 p.m. and submitted the paper to Nature at 8.26 p.m. the identical night.
When the scholars requested Dias in regards to the gorgeous new knowledge, they are saying, he advised them he had taken all of the resistance and magnetic-susceptibility knowledge earlier than coming to Rochester. The information workforce obtained e-mails that present Dias had been making related claims since 2014. Within the e-mails, Dias says he has noticed a sulfur-based superconductor with a temperature above 120 Okay — which is comparatively excessive, however removed from room temperature. The scholars recall that they felt odd about Dias’s clarification however didn’t suspect misconduct on the time. As comparatively inexperienced graduate college students, they are saying, they trusted their adviser.
Throughout peer overview, nonetheless, Dias’s claims about CSH met extra resistance. Nature’s information workforce obtained the reviews of all three referees who reviewed the manuscript. Two of the referees have been involved over a lack of awareness in regards to the chemical construction of CSH. After three rounds of overview, just one referee supported publication.
The information workforce confirmed 5 superconductivity specialists these reviews. They shared a number of the referees’ considerations however say it was not unreasonable for the Nature editors to have accepted the paper, given the strongly optimistic report from one referee and what was identified on the time.
The paper was revealed on 14 October 2020 to fanfare. Dias and a co-author, Ashkan Salamat, a physicist on the College of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), additionally introduced their new enterprise: Unearthly Supplies, a Rochester-based firm established to develop superconductors that function at ambient temperatures and pressures.
On the time, college students say, they trusted Dias’s explanations of the place the resistance and magnetic-susceptibility knowledge got here from. Now, nonetheless, they not imagine the outcome, or Dias’s clarification for the info. “I don’t assume any of the opposite knowledge was collected,” one scholar says.
Issues come up
Quickly after the CSH paper was revealed, Jorge Hirsch, a condensed-matter theorist on the College of California, San Diego, started urgent Dias to launch the uncooked magnetic-susceptibility knowledge, which weren’t included within the paper. Greater than a 12 months later, Dias and Salamat lastly made the uncooked knowledge public.
In January 2022, Hirsch and Dirk van der Marel, a retired professor on the College of Geneva in Switzerland, posted an evaluation of the uncooked knowledge on the preprint server arXiv4. They reported that the info factors have been separated by suspiciously common intervals — every precisely a a number of of 0.16555 nanovolts. Hirsch and van der Marel acknowledged that this characteristic was proof of knowledge manipulation.
Dias’s workforce used laser spectroscopy to measure the strain of samples in diamond anvil cells.Credit score: Lauren Petracca/New York Occasions/Redux/eyevine
Dias and Salamat responded in an arXiv preprint, arguing that the voltage intervals have been merely a results of a background subtraction5 (the preprint was subsequently withdrawn by arXiv directors). In high-pressure experiments, the sign of a pattern’s superconductivity — a drop in voltage — may be drowned out by background noise. Researchers typically subtract this background, however the CSH paper didn’t point out the approach.
Questions in regards to the knowledge prompted Nature’s journal workforce to look additional. In response to the considerations from Hirsch and van der Marel, editors at Nature requested 4 new referees to take part in a post-publication overview of the CSH paper, which, like most peer overview, was confidential.
Now, Nature’s information workforce has obtained the reviews, which present that two of the nameless referees discovered no proof of misconduct. However two different reviewers, whom the information workforce can establish as physicists Brad Ramshaw at Cornell College in Ithaca, New York, and James Hamlin on the College of Florida in Gainesville, discovered critical issues with the paper.
Particularly, Hamlin discovered proof that led him to conclude the uncooked knowledge had been altered. Nature utilized an editor’s notice to the CSH paper on 15 February 2022, alerting readers to considerations in regards to the knowledge.
On 4 March 2022, Dias and Salamat despatched a rebuttal to the referees, denying knowledge manipulation. However the rebuttal, seen by the information workforce, doesn’t present a proof for the problems that Hamlin and Ramshaw discovered within the uncooked magnetic-susceptibility knowledge. “I don’t know of any affordable approach this might come about,” Ramshaw wrote in a 13 March e-mail to Nature’s manuscript workforce in response to the rebuttal. “The best conclusion could be that these knowledge units are all generated by hand and never truly measured.”
On 27 March 2022, Hamlin despatched Nature’s journal workforce his response to the rebuttal, which proposed a proof for the odd knowledge: quite than deriving the revealed knowledge from uncooked knowledge, Dias had added noise to the revealed knowledge to generate a set of ‘uncooked’ knowledge.
To evaluate the proof for knowledge fabrication, Nature’s information workforce final month requested two superconductivity specialists to overview the post-publication reviews. They stated that Hamlin’s evaluation provides credence to claims of misconduct.
In July 2022, utilizing a distinct evaluation, van der Marel and Hirsch independently got here to the identical conclusion and posted their findings on arXiv as an replace to their authentic preprint. In it, they state that the uncooked knowledge will need to have been constructed from the revealed knowledge6.
Why superconductor research is in a ‘golden age’ — despite controversy
In gentle of those considerations, Nature began the method of retracting the CSH paper. On 11 August, Nature editors despatched an e-mail to all of the co-authors asking them whether or not they agreed to the retraction. College students who spoke to the information workforce say that they have been stunned by this, as a result of Dias had saved them out of the loop in regards to the post-publication overview course of. They remained unaware of any of the referees’ findings, together with that there was proof for knowledge fabrication.
Nature retracted the CSH paper on 26 September 2022, with a discover that states “points undermine confidence within the revealed magnetic susceptibility knowledge as a complete, and we’re accordingly retracting the paper”. Karl Ziemelis, Nature’s chief utilized and bodily sciences editor, says the journal’s investigation ceased as quickly because the editors misplaced confidence within the paper, which “did go away different technical considerations unresolved”.
The retraction doesn’t state what Hamlin and Ramshaw discovered within the post-publication overview course of instigated by Nature: that the uncooked knowledge have been most likely fabricated. Felicitas Heβelmann, a specialist in retractions on the Humboldt College of Berlin, says misconduct is troublesome to show, so journals typically keep away from laying blame on authors in retractions. “Plenty of retractions use very imprecise language,” she says.
Publicly, Dias continued to insist that CSH was professional and that the retraction was merely right down to an obscure technical disagreement.
As Nature journal editors have been investigating the CSH paper, the College of Rochester performed two investigations into Dias’s work; a separate one adopted the retraction. One of many college’s inquiries was in response to an nameless report, which included a number of the proof indicating doable knowledge fabrication that surfaced throughout Nature’s post-publication overview.
The college advised Nature’s information workforce that the three investigations relating to the CSH examine didn’t discover proof of misconduct.
A spokesperson for Nature says that the journal took the college’s conclusions into consideration throughout its deliberations, however nonetheless determined to retract the paper.
The dearth of industry-wide requirements for investigating misconduct leaves it unclear whether or not the accountability to research lands extra on journals or on establishments. Ziemelis says: “Allegations of doable misconduct are outdoors the remit of peer overview and extra appropriately investigated by the host establishment.”
Heβelmann says the accountability to research can “fluctuate from case to case”, however that there’s a development of extra journals investigating misconduct, no matter institutional motion.
Funding companies may also examine alleged misconduct. On this case, Dias has acquired funding from each the US Nationwide Science Basis (NSF) and the Division of Vitality (DoE). The DoE didn’t reply to questions from Nature’s information workforce about Dias’s grant. The NSF declined to say whether or not it’s investigating Dias, nevertheless it famous that awards may be terminated and suspended in response to an investigation.
The scholars who spoke to Nature’s information workforce say that none of them have been interviewed within the three investigations of the CSH work by the college, which they weren’t conscious of on the time. “We have been hoping somebody would come speak to us,” one scholar says. “It by no means occurred.”
A brand new declare
By the point the CSH paper got here underneath scrutiny by Nature journal editors in early 2022, Dias’s graduate college students have been beginning to develop involved. In summer season 2021, Dias had tasked them with investigating a compound of lutetium and hydrogen (LuH), which he thought is perhaps a high-temperature superconductor.
They started testing commercially bought samples of LuH and, earlier than lengthy, a scholar measured the resistance dropping to zero at a temperature of round 300 Okay (27 °C). Dias concluded the fabric was a room-temperature superconductor, despite the fact that there was extraordinarily little proof, a number of college students advised Nature. “Ranga was satisfied,” one scholar says.
Physicist James Hamlin raised considerations about knowledge reported by the Rochester group.Credit score: Zach Stovall for Nature
However the measurements have been tormented by systematic errors, which college students say they shared with Dias. “I used to be very, very involved that one of many probes touching the pattern was damaged,” one scholar says. “We could possibly be measuring one thing that appears like a superconducting drop, however be fooling ourselves.” Though college students did see resistance drops in a number of different samples, there was no consistency throughout samples, and even for repeated measurements of a single pattern, they advised Nature’s information workforce.
College students have been additionally anxious in regards to the accuracy of different measurements. Throughout elemental evaluation of a pattern, they detected hint quantities of nitrogen. Dias concluded that the samples included the component — and the ensuing paper refers to nitrogen-doped lutetium hydride. However additional evaluation, carried out after the paper was submitted, indicated that nitrogen was not integrated into the LuH. “Ranga ignored what I used to be saying,” one scholar says.
As a result of they weren’t consulted on the CSH paper, the scholars say they needed to ensure they have been included within the strategy of writing the LuH paper. In response to the scholars, Dias initially agreed to contain them. “Then, sooner or later, he sends us an e-mail and says, ‘Right here’s the paper. I’m gonna submit it,’” one scholar says.
E-mails seen by Nature’s information workforce corroborate the timeline. Dias despatched out the primary draft of the LuH paper in an e-mail at 2.09 a.m. on 25 April 2022. “Please ship me your feedback by 10.30 AM,” Dias wrote. “I’m submitting it at present.” The manuscript they acquired didn’t comprise any figures, making it troublesome to evaluate. The scholars satisfied Dias to carry off on submitting till the following day, once they might focus on it in individual.
One scholar was upset sufficient by the assembly that they wrote a memorandum of the occasions 4 days afterwards. The memo provides particulars of how college students raised considerations and Dias dismissed them. College students anxious that the draft was deceptive, as a result of it included an outline of synthesize LuH; in actuality, all of the measurements have been taken on commercially purchased samples of LuH. “Ranga responded by mentioning that it was by no means explicitly talked about that we synthesized the pattern so technically he was not mendacity,” the coed wrote.
The scholars say in addition they raised considerations in regards to the strain knowledge reported within the draft. “None of these strain factors correspond to something that we truly measured,” one scholar says. In response to the memo, Dias dismissed their considerations by saying: “Stress is a joke.”
College students say that Dias gave them an ultimatum: take away their names, or let him ship the draft. Regardless of their worries, the scholars say that they had no selection however to acquiesce. “I simply bear in mind being very intimidated,” one scholar says. The scholar says they remorse not talking up extra to Dias. “Nevertheless it’s scary on the time. What if I do and he makes the remainder of my life depressing?”
Dias made some modifications that the scholars requested, however ignored others; the submitted manuscript contained an outline of a synthesis process that had not been used. He despatched the LuH manuscript to Nature that night.
Paper issues
After Nature revealed the LuH paper in March 2023, many scientists have been vital of the journal’s choice, given the rumours of misconduct surrounding the retracted CSH paper. They needed to know on what foundation Nature had determined to simply accept it. (Within the case of each papers, neither the peer-review reports nor the referees’ identities were revealed.) Nature’s information workforce obtained these critiques and may, for the primary time, reveal what occurred in the course of the overview course of for the LuH paper. Nature editors acquired the manuscript in April 2022 (a few month after Nature acquired the CSH post-publication overview reviews) and despatched it out to 4 referees.
Physicist Brad Ramshaw, along with James Hamlin, investigated knowledge questions surrounding Dias’s superconductivity analysis.Credit score: Kim Modic
All 4 referees agreed that the findings, if true, have been extremely important. However they emphasised warning in accepting the manuscript, due to the extraordinary nature of the claims. Referee 4 wrote that the journal ought to be cautious with such extraordinary claims to keep away from one other “Schön affair”, referring to the intensive knowledge fabrication by German physicist Jan Hendrik Schön, which has change into a cautionary story in physics and led to dozens of papers being retracted, seven of them in Nature. Referees 2 and three additionally expressed concern in regards to the outcomes due to the CSH paper, which on the time bore an editor’s notice of concern however had not but been retracted. Referees raised a plethora of points, from an absence of particulars in regards to the synthesis process to unexplainable options within the knowledge.
Though Dias and Salamat managed to assuage a few of these considerations, referees stated the authors’ responses have been “not passable” and the manuscript went via 5 levels of overview. In the long run, just one referee stated there was stable proof of superconductivity, and one other gave certified help for publication. The opposite two referees didn’t voice help for publication, and considered one of them remained unhappy with the authors’ responses and needed extra measurements taken.
The information workforce requested 5 superconductivity specialists to overview key data obtainable to Nature journal editors once they have been contemplating the LuH manuscript: the referee reviews for the LuH paper and the reviews indicating knowledge fabrication within the CSH paper. All 5 stated the paperwork raised critical questions in regards to the validity of the LuH outcomes and the integrity of the info.
“The second paper — from my understanding of timelines — was being thought of after the Nature editors and a number of the condensed-matter group have been conscious there have been profound issues” with the CSH paper, Canfield says. The specialists additionally pointed to unfavorable feedback from a number of the LuH referees, such because the statement by Referee 1 that “uncooked knowledge doesn’t seem like a characteristic equivalent to superconducting transition”.
When requested why Nature thought of Dias’s LuH paper after being warned of potential misconduct on the earlier paper, Magdalena Skipper, Nature’s editor-in-chief, stated: “Our editorial coverage considers each submission in its personal proper.” The rationale, Skipper explains, is that selections ought to be made on the idea of the scientific high quality, not who the authors are.
Many different journals have related insurance policies, and guidelines from the Committee on Publication Ethics state that peer reviewers ought to “not permit their critiques to be influenced by the origins of a manuscript”. However not all journals say they deal with submissions independently. Van der Marel, who’s the editor-in-chief of Physica C, says that he would think about previous allegations of misconduct if he have been assessing a brand new paper by the identical creator. “In case you have good causes to doubt the credibility of authors, you aren’t obliged to publish,” he says.
Underneath overview
Quickly after the LuH paper was revealed in March 2023, it got here underneath additional scrutiny. A number of groups of researchers independently tried to duplicate the outcomes. One group, utilizing samples from Dias’s lab, reported electrical resistance measurements that it stated indicated high-temperature superconductivity7. However quite a few different replication makes an attempt found no evidence of room-temperature superconductivity in the compound.
As previously reported in Science, Hamlin and Ramshaw despatched Nature a proper letter of concern in Might. Dias and Salamat responded to the problems later that month, however the college students say they weren’t included within the response, and learnt in regards to the considerations a lot later.
A recording of a 6 July 2023 assembly between Dias and his college students, obtained by Nature’s information workforce, reveals that Dias continued to govern the scholars. All through the hour-long assembly, Dias stated he needed to contain the scholars in deciding how the workforce would reply to considerations in regards to the LuH paper. However he didn’t inform them that he and Salamat had already responded to the technical points raised by Hamlin and Ramshaw.
Certainly one of Dias’s college students adjusts a diamond anvil cell, which the workforce utilized in its experiments.Credit score: Lauren Petracca/New York Occasions/Redux/eyevine
The recording additionally reveals how Dias tried to govern the Nature overview, as a result of he believed the method would flip in opposition to him as soon as extra. “We are able to faux we’re going to cooperate and purchase time for a month or so, after which collect some senior scientists from the group,” Dias says within the recording. Dias explains how he desires to make use of the credibility of senior scientists — or the College of Rochester — to strain Nature and avert a retraction.
However Dias’s plans have been thwarted. Later that month, the scholars acquired an e-mail from Nature’s editors that confirmed Dias and Salamat had, in reality, already responded to the considerations. The scholars realized that Dias had despatched them a doc with the dates eliminated, apparently to perpetuate the falsehood.
On 25 July 2023, the journal initiated a post-publication overview and requested 4 new referees to evaluate the dispute. All the referees agreed that there have been critical issues with the info, and that Dias and Salamat didn’t “convincingly tackle” the problems raised by Hamlin and Ramshaw. A spokesperson for Nature says the journal communicated with College of Rochester representatives in the course of the post-publication overview.
Individually, Dias’s college students have been starting to mobilize, re-examining the LuH knowledge they have been capable of entry. The scholars hadn’t performed this earlier than, as a result of, they are saying, Dias produced nearly the entire figures and plots in each of the Nature papers.
A number of different researchers advised the information workforce that the principal investigator doesn’t usually produce all of the plots. “That’s bizarre,” Canfield says.
The scholars say they have been particularly involved in regards to the magnetic susceptibility measurements — once more, the uncooked knowledge appeared to have been altered. Taking a look at the true uncooked knowledge, one scholar says, the fabric doesn’t seem like a superconductor. However when Dias subtracted the background, the coed says, that “principally flips that curve the other way up and makes it look superconducting as an alternative”.
They continued discovering issues. For the resistance measurements, too, the alleged uncooked knowledge didn’t match knowledge truly taken within the lab. As an alternative, it had been tweaked to look neater. “Science may be actually messy … a few of these plots simply look too good,” a scholar says.
Again to high school
By this level, some college students have been deeply involved about their careers. “My thesis goes to be stuffed with fabricated knowledge. How am I presupposed to graduate on this lab?” one scholar says. “At that time, I used to be considering of both taking a go away of absence, or of dropping out.”
Through the summer season, Dias started dealing with different points. Certainly one of his papers in Bodily Assessment Letters8 — unrelated to room-temperature superconductivity — was being retracted after the journal discovered convincing proof of knowledge fabrication. Across the identical time, Dias was stripped of his college students and the College of Rochester launched a fourth investigation — this time, the scholars say they have been interviewed.
‘A very disturbing picture’: another retraction imminent for controversial physicist
In late August, the scholars determined to request a retraction of the LuH paper and compiled their considerations in regards to the knowledge and Dias’s behaviour. Earlier than they despatched a letter to Nature, Dias apparently caught wind of it and despatched the scholars a cease-and-desist discover, which the information workforce has seen. However, after consulting a college official who gave them the inexperienced gentle, the scholars despatched their letter to Nature editors, precipitating the retraction course of. Eight out of 11 authors, together with Salamat, signed the letter and the LuH paper was retracted two months later, on 7 November.
In response to a number of sources acquainted with the corporate, Salamat left Unearthly Supplies in 2023 and is underneath investigation at UNLV. He didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark, and a spokesperson for UNLV declined to remark publicly on personnel points.
The scandal has additionally had an impression on Nature’s journal workforce. “This has been a deeply irritating scenario, and we perceive the power of emotions this has stirred throughout the group,” Ziemelis says. “We’re taking a look at this case fastidiously to see what classes may be learnt for the longer term.”
With the college’s investigation now full, Dias stays at Rochester whereas a separate course of for addressing “personnel actions” proceeds. He has no college students, shouldn’t be instructing any lessons and has misplaced entry to his lab, in accordance with a number of sources. Dias’s prestigious NSF grant — which has US$333,283 left to pay out till 2026 — may be in jeopardy if the NSF finds purpose to terminate it.
Dias has not revealed any extra papers about LuH, however on X (previously Twitter), he often posts updates in regards to the materials. In a 19 January tweet, Dias shared a picture of knowledge, which he stated confirmed the Meissner impact — “definitive proof of superconductivity!”