English

Electron-phonon coupling constant and BCS ratios in (La,Nd)-H superhydride

Superconductivity 2022-07-04 v2

Abstract

Stoichiometric near room-temperature superconductors (i.e., H3SH_3S and LaH10LaH_{10}) exhibit so high ground state upper critical field, Bc2(0)>100TB_{c2}(0)>100 T, that the magnetic phase diagram in these materials cannot be measured in non-destructive experiments. However, recently, Semenok et al (arXiv2203.06500) proposed the idea to explore full magnetic phase diagram in NRTS samples in which the superconducting order parameter is suppressed by the magnetic element doping. If the element is uniformly distributed in the material, then the theory of the electron-phonon mediated superconductivity predicts the suppression of the order parameter in three-dimensional s-wave superconductor. Semenok et al (arXiv2203.06500) experimentally proved this idea by substituting La with the magnetic rare earth Nd in the La1xNdxH10yLa_{1-x}Nd_{x}H_{10-y}. As a result, TcT_c in the La1xNdxH10yLa_{1-x}Nd_{x}H_{10-y} (x=0.09) decreases to Tc~120 K, and the upper critical field decreases to Bc2(T=41K)=55TB_{c2}(T=41 K)=55 T. While the exact hydrogen content should be further established in the La1xNdxH10yLa_{1-x}Nd_{x}H_{10-y} (because similar TcT_c suppression was observed in hydrogen deficient LaH10yLaH_{10-y} reported by Drozdov et al (2019 Nature 569 528)), a significant part of the full magnetic phase diagram for La1xNdxH10yLa_{1-x}Nd_{x}H_{10-y} (x=0.09) was measured. Here we analyzed reported Semenok et al (arXiv2203.06500) data for La1xNdxH10yLa_{1-x}Nd_{x}H_{10-y} (x=0.09) compressed at P=180 GPa and deduced: (a) Debye temperature, Tθ=1156KT_{\theta}=1156 K; (b) the electron-phonon coupling constant, λeph=1.65{\lambda}_{e-ph}=1.65; (c) the ground state superconducting energy gap, Δ(0)=20.2meV{\Delta}(0)=20.2 meV; (d) the gap-to-transition temperature ratio, 2Δ(0)/kBTc=4.02{\Delta}(0)/k_BT_c=4.0; and (e) the relative jump in specific heat at TcT_c, ΔC/C=1.68{\Delta}C/C=1.68. The deduced values indicate that La1xNdxH10yLa_{1-x}Nd_{x}H_{10-y} (x=0.09; P=180 GPa) is moderately strong coupled s-wave superconductor.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2203.13232,
  title  = {Electron-phonon coupling constant and BCS ratios in (La,Nd)-H superhydride},
  author = {E. F. Talantsev},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2203.13232},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

13 pages, 3 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-24T10:24:59.809Z