A team of U.S. researchers at the University of Rochester said it created a superconducting material that can work at room temperature and relatively low pressure in an article published in the international academic journal Nature on Wednesday.

According to the paper, the material is made of hydrogen mixed with nitrogen and a rare earth element, lutetium.

It can exhibit superconductivity at 20.56 degrees Celsius and 10 kilobars – 145,000 pounds per square inch – of pressure, which is about 10,000 times the pressure of Earth's atmosphere.

Superconductors working at around room temperature usually require millions of atmospheric pressure. However, the pressure the new material requires is relatively low and much easier to achieve.

A superconductor able to work under such ordinary conditions is a dream scientists have been chasing for more than a century and could lead to a new era in high-efficiency machines and any technology using electric energy if confirmed.

With this material, the dawn of ambient superconductivity and applied technologies has arrived, said the research team led by Ranga Dias, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and physics at the University of Rochester.

"If it turns out to be correct, it's possibly the biggest breakthrough in the history of superconductivity," said James Hamlin, a physicist at the University of Florida who didn't participate in the work, according to Quanta Magazine.

As promising as the new material sounds, the team is facing cautious skepticism from the academic world, as its research of another superconductor made of hydrogen, sulfur and carbon published in Nature in 2020 was retracted after other scientists questioned some of the data.

The superconductor they created in 2020 requires 2.67 million times the pressure of Earth's atmosphere, which is difficult to create. Other researchers also reported that they were unable to reproduce it.

There's still more for the scientists to do to confirm this newly created superconducting material. Eugene Gregoryanz, a physicist at the University of Edinburgh, said, "Whether it's true or not, I guess time will show."