Studies on polyhydrides are attracting growing attentions recently due to their potential high temperature superconductivity (SC). We here report the discovery of SC in hafnium polyhydrides at high pressures. The hafnium superhydrides are synthesized at high pressure and high temperature conditions using diamond anvil cell in combination with in-situ high pressure laser heating technique. The SC was investigated by in-situ high pressure resistance measurements in applied magnetic fields. A superconducting transition with onset Tc ~83 K was observed at 243 GPa. The upper critical field Hc2(0) was estimated to be 24 Tesla by GL theory and the consequent superconducting coherent length to be ~37 angstrom. Our results suggest that the superconducting phase is from C2/m-HfH14. This is the first 5d transition metal polyhydride superconductor with Tc above the liquid nitrogen temperature.
@article{arxiv.2208.05816,
title = {Superconductivity above 80 K in polyhydrides of hafnium},
author = {C. L. Zhang and X. He and Z. W. Li and S. J. Zhang and B. S. Min and J. Zhang and K. Lu and J. F. Zhao and L. C. Shi and Y. Peng and X. C. Wang and S. M. Feng and R. C. Yu and L. H. Wang and V. B. Prakapenka and S. Chariton and H. Z. Liu and C. Q. Jin},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2208.05816},
year = {2022}
}
Comments
Accepted by the journal of Material Today Physics (2022)