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Register a new userIsotope effect in superconducting lanthanum hydride under high compression
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Recently, the discovery of room-temperature superconductivity (SC) was experimentally realized in the fcc phase of LaH$_{10}$ under megabar pressure. Specifically, the isotope effect of $T_{rm c}$ was measured by the replacement of hydrogen (H) with deuterium (D), demonstrating a driving role of phonons in the observed room-temperature SC. Herein, based on the first-principles calculations within the harmonic approximation, we reveal that (i) the identical electron-phonon coupling constants of fcc LaH$_{10}$ and LaD$_{10}$ decrease monotonously with increasing pressure and (ii) the isotope effect of $T_{rm c}$ is nearly proportional to $M^{-{alpha}}$ ($M$: ionic mass) with ${alpha}$ ${approx}$ 0.465, irrespective of pressure. The predicted value of ${alpha}$ agrees well with the experimental one (${alpha}=0.46$) measured at around 150 GPa. Thus, our findings provide a theoretical confirmation of the conventional electron-phonon coupling mechanism in a newly discovered room-temperature superconductor of compressed LaH$_{10}$.
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The discovery of superconductivity at 200 K in the hydrogen sulfide system at large pressures [1] was a clear demonstration that hydrogen-rich materials can be high-temperature superconductors. The recent synthesis of LaH$_{10}$ with a superconducting critical temperature (T$_{text{c}}$) of 250 K [2,3] places these materials at the verge of reaching the long-dreamed room-temperature superconductivity. Electrical and x-ray diffraction measurements determined a weakly pressure-dependent T$_{text{c}}$ for LaH$_{10}$ between 137 and 218 gigapascals in a structure with a face-centered cubic (fcc) arrangement of La atoms [3]. Here we show that quantum atomic fluctuations stabilize in all this pressure range a high-symmetry Fm-3m crystal structure consistent with experiments, which has a colossal electron-phonon coupling of $lambdasim3.5$. Even if ab initio classical calculations neglecting quantum atomic vibrations predict this structure to distort below 230 GPa yielding a complex energy landscape with many local minima, the inclusion of quantum effects simplifies the energy landscape evidencing the Fm-3m as the true ground state. The agreement between the calculated and experimental T$_{text{c}}$ values further supports this phase as responsible for the 250 K superconductivity. The relevance of quantum fluctuations in the energy landscape found here questions many of the crystal structure predictions made for hydrides within a classical approach that at the moment guide the experimental quest for room-temperature superconductivity [4,5,6]. Furthermore, quantum effects reveal crucial to sustain solids with extraordinary electron-phonon coupling that may otherwise be unstable [7].
We report the influence on the superconducting critical temperature $T_c$ in doped SrTiO$_3$ of the substitution of the natural $^{16}$O atoms by the heavier isotope $^{18}$O. We observe that for a wide range of doping this substitution causes a strong ($sim 50 %$) enhancement of $T_c$. Also the magnetic critical field $H_{c2}$ is increased by a factor $sim 2$. Such a strong impact on $T_c$ and $H_{c2}$, with a sign opposite to conventional superconductors, is unprecedented. The observed effect could be the consequence of strong coupling of the doped electrons to lattice vibrations (phonons), a notion which finds support in numerous optical and photo-emission studies. The unusually large size of the observed isotope effect supports a recent model for superconductivity in these materials based on strong coupling to the ferroelectric soft modes of SrTiO$_{3}$.
Various tin hydrides SnHx (x = 4, 8, 12, 14) have been theoretically predicted to be stable at high pressures and to show high-critical-temperature superconductivity with Tc ranging from about 70 to 100 K. However, experimental verifications for any of these phases are still lacking to date. Here, we report on the in-situ synthesis, electrical resistance, and synchrotron x-ray diffraction measurements of SnHx at ~ 200 GPa. The main phase of the obtained sample can be indexed with the monoclinic C2/m SnH12 via comparison with the theoretical structural modes. A sudden drop of resistance and the systematic downward shift under external magnetic fields signals the occurrence of superconductivity in SnHx at Tc = ~ 70 K with an upper critical field u0Hc2(0) = ~ 11.2 T, which is relatively low in comparison with other reported high-Tc superhydrides. Various characteristic superconducting parameters are estimated based on the BCS theory.
At present, hydrogen-based compounds constitute one of the most promising classes of materials for applications as a phonon-mediated high-temperature superconductors. Herein, the behavior of the superconducting phase in tellurium hydride (HTe) at high pressure ($p=300$ GPa) is analyzed in details, by using the isotropic Migdal-Eliashberg equations. The chosen pressure conditions are considered here as a case study which corresponds to the highest critical temperature value ($T_{c}$) in the analyzed material, as determined within recent density functional theory simulations. It is found that the Migdal-Eliashberg formalism, which constitutes a strong-coupling generalization of the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) theory, predicts that the critical temperature value ($T_{c}=52.73$ K) is higher than previous estimates of the McMillan formula. Further investigations show that the characteristic dimensionless ratios for the the thermodynamic critical field, the specific heat for the superconducting state, and the superconducting band gap exceeds the limits of the BCS theory. In this context, also the effective electron mass is not equal to the bare electron mass as provided by the BCS theory. On the basis of these findings it is predicted that the strong-coupling and retardation effects play pivotal role in the superconducting phase of HTe at 300 GPa, in agreement with similar theoretical estimates for the sibling hydrogen and hydrogen-based compounds. Hence, it is suggested that the superconducting state in HTe cannot be properly described within the mean-field picture of the BCS theory.
Noble metals adopt close-packed structures at ambient pressure and rarely undergo structural transformation at high pressures. Platinum (Pt), in particular, is normally considered to be unreactive and is therefore not expected to form hydrides under pressure. We predict that platinum hydride (PtH) has a lower enthalpy than its constituents solid Pt and molecular hydrogen at pressures above 21.5 GPa. We have calculated structural phase transitions from tetragonal to hexagonal close-packed or face-centered cubic (fcc) PtH between 70 and 80 GPa. Linear response calculations indicate that PtH is a superconductor at these pressures with a critical temperature of about 10--25 K. These findings help to shed light on recent observations of pressure-induced metallization and superconductivity in hydrogen-rich materials. We show that formation of fcc metal hydrides under pressure is common among noble metal hydrides and examine the possibility of superconductivity in these materials.
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