“Hydrogen Clathrate Structures in Rare Earth Hydrides at High Pressures: Possible Route to Room-Temperature Superconductivity” (2017), by Feng Peng et al. Earth and Planetary Sciences research paper. Original abstract below, unchanged. No free PDF was found.

Hydrogen Clathrate Structures in Rare Earth Hydrides at High Pressures: Possible Route to Room-Temperature Superconductivity

Feng Peng, Ying Sun, Chris J. Pickard et al. · September 8, 2017 · Earth and Planetary Sciences

Abstract

Room-temperature superconductivity has been a long-held dream and an area of intensive research. Recent experimental findings of superconductivity at 200 K in highly compressed hydrogen (H) sulfides have demonstrated the potential for achieving room-temperature superconductivity in compressed H-rich materials. We report first-principles structure searches for stable H-rich clathrate structures in rare earth hydrides at high pressures. The peculiarity of these structures lies in the emergence of unusual H cages with stoichiometries H₂₄, H₂₉, and H₃₂, in which H atoms are weakly covalently bonded to one another, with rare earth atoms occupying the centers of the cages. We have found that high-temperature superconductivity is closely associated with H clathrate structures, with large H-derived electronic densities of states at the Fermi level and strong electron-phonon coupling related to the stretching and rocking motions of H atoms within the cages. Strikingly, a yttrium (Y) H₃₂ clathrate structure of stoichiometry YH₁₀ is predicted to be a potential room-temperature superconductor with an estimated T_c of up to 303 K at 400 GPa, as derived by direct solution of the Eliashberg equation.

Source page DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.119.107001