Physicist Who Made Superconductor Claims Exits University of Rochester

Science|Physicist Who Made Superconductor Claims Exits University of Rochester

Ranga Dias, a physicist who faced a public reckoning over accusations of research misconduct, is no longer employed by the University of Rochester, a spokeswoman for the institution said Tuesday.

Dr. Dias gained prominence for claiming to discover a superconductor that worked at room temperature, an advancement in materials science that could transform virtually any technology that relies on electricity. But two prominent journals retracted three studies on which Dr. Dias was the senior author.

An internal investigation into that data, which involved a panel of independent physicists and concluded this March, found that he had engaged in research misconduct during his time on faculty, the spokeswoman said. She declined to specify when Dr. Dias officially parted ways with the university.

Through an attorney, Dr. Dias declined to comment.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier on Dr. Dias’s departure from the university.

The investigation that concluded in March was the fourth the university had launched into Dr. Dias’s research dealings, according to a news report published by the journal Nature, although it was the first to find evidence of misconduct.

Questions over the integrity of Dr. Dias’s work has centered around two blockbuster papers, both published in Nature, which described materials that could superconduct electricity at temperatures of up to 70 degrees Fahrenheit, although only under modestly high pressures.

Until then, scientists had only found superconductors that worked under extreme conditions, like ultralow temperatures and crushing pressures. Dr. Dias’s findings raised hopes that superconductors could transform medical scanners and usher in a wave of new technologies.

Those hopes were dashed after Nature retracted the first journal article, originally published in 2020 because of concerns about the integrity of the data analysis. In that case, all of the paper’s authors disagreed with the journal’s decision.

But a second study, published in Nature in March 2023, was retracted at the request of eight of Dr. Dias’s co-authors, who claimed he had kept them out of the loop in later stages of the paper’s review. Dr. Dias stood by the paper and urged his colleagues not to send a letter to the journal.

The journal Physical Review Letters retracted another study focused on materials science and not involving superconductors, after it found evidence of data fabrication. At the time, Dr. Dias said there was no fabrication or manipulation of data and expressed “disappointment regarding the decision.”

Dr. Dias co-founded a company Unearthly Materials, which seeks to commercialize his semiconductor research. It has raised more $16.5 million from investors and still touts the results described in the retracted Nature papers on its website.

Kenneth Chang contributed reporting.