Abstract
One of the main motivations for studying superconductivity is to search for high-temperature superconductors, especially room-temperature superconductors. During the long history of more than 100 years since the discovery of superconductivity, a number of high-temperature superconductors were found and several great breakthroughs were achieved. Recently, thanks to advances in computing power, progress in crystal structure prediction, and developments in density functional theory, computations have been carried out to predict the structures and an appearance of superconductivity of hydrides at high pressure. More exciting, it is been the first time when a simple, perfect cubic phase of H3S which become superconductor at Tc = 200 K under high pressure was successfully predicted by means of ab initio calculation, and then confirmed experimentally. This observation breaks the temperature record of cuprate with Tc = 164 K and further stimulates the studies of hydrides under pressure. Very recently, the high value of Tc = 286 K was theoretically predicted for LaH10 at 210 GPa and this prediction has been confirmed experimentally. These two successful examples demonstrate the importance of ab initio approach to superconductivity.
Highlights
Progress in the Field of SuperconductivityEver since Onnes [1] discovered the phenomenon of superconductivity in 1911, searching for high-temperature superconductors (see Fig. 1) and understanding the mechanism of such a behavior have become one of the hot spots in the field of condensed matter physics
Ever since Onnes [1] discovered the phenomenon of superconductivity in 1911, searching for high-temperature superconductors and understanding the mechanism of such a behavior have become one of the hot spots in the field of condensed matter physics
The theoretical studies suggested that the Tc of SiH4 [25, 26], GeH4 [27, 28], SnH4 [29, 30], Si2H6 [31], and B2H6 [32] at high pressure is 16∼106 K, 40∼64 K, 62∼80 K, and 139 K; the highest Tc of new hydrides SiH4(H2)2 [33], GeH4(H2)2 [34], KH6 [35], and CaH6 [36] under high pressure is 107 K, 90 K, 80 K, and 235 K, respectively
Summary
Ever since Onnes [1] discovered the phenomenon of superconductivity in 1911, searching for high-temperature superconductors (see Fig. 1) and understanding the mechanism of such a behavior have become one of the hot spots in the field of condensed matter physics. People searched superconductors mainly among the materials containing transition metal (TM) with superconducting transition temperatures (Tc) 17–23 K. More cuprate superconductors were discovered, and the critical temperature recorded was constantly increased. Most of physicists have long believed that if magnetic elements (such as iron and nickel) are added to the superconductors, the superconductivity will be destroyed. New iron-based superconductors such as iron arsenide and iron selenide were continuously discovered. The highest Tc of samarium-doped SrFeAsF had been reached 56 K [6]. The Tc of MgB2 is much lower than that of copper oxide superconductors, MgB2 is relatively inexpensive and easy to synthesize, so it means that the MgB2 has the conditions for scaled production and applications
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