New zirconium polyhydrides become superconducting with high Tc

The discovery of high temperature superconductors in polyhydrides attracts growing attentions in searching for new type hydrogen rich superconductors. Most of experimentally reported high Tc superhydride superconductors are  binary hydrides of main group elements, rare earth metals (La, Y and etc.) or alkali earth metal. Prof. Jin team at Institute of Physics Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOPCA) recently discovered new zirconium polyhydrides using high pressure techniques based on diamond anvil cell in combination with in situ laser heating during investigation of new type of hydrogen rich superconducting materials. “The zirconium polyhydrides are synthesized at 220 GPa and 2000 K high pressure high temperature conditions and exhibits superconductivity with Tc ~71 K at 220 GPa” told paper first author C. Zhang, a graduate student at IOPCAS. The upper critical field was estimated to be ~36 Tesla while the superconducting coherent length hence obtained is ~30 Å. It is the first experimental report on transition metal hydride superconductor with Tc exceeding 70 K. The new compounds can be viewed a significant outreach of high Tc superconducting polyhydrides from alkaline earth, rare earth or sulfides based hydrides to transition metal hydrides, suggesting more superconducting hydride materials available.

 “The superconducting zirconium polyhydrides have to be been synthesized at high pressure at the moment but we are trying to recover the samples at lower or even at ambient conditions by introducing chemical pressures in future” commented coauthor Xiancheng Wang who is a professor at IOPCAS.

The study entitled “Superconductivity in zirconium polyhydrides with Tc above 70 K" was published in Science Bulletin 67, 907(2022) at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scib.2022.03.001.

Address:

Institute of Physics Chinese Academy of Sciences(IOPCAS)

Changqing JIN (Email: Jin@iphy.ac.cn)

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