Importance of carbon in carbonaceous sulfur hydride room-temperature superconductor

Abstract

In the new carbonaceous sulfur hydride superconductor, with Tc=287 K at 267 GPa, the characteristic temperature is found to be 6239 K, implying a Debye temperature vastly exceeding that of metallic hydrogen. With the help of the Eliashberg–Nambu formalism and a generic model for the electron–phonon spectrum density, 0.92<λ<1.01, 0.125<μ∗<0.179, and 3.90<2Δ0∕kBTc<3.92 are shown to be the most likely defining properties of the superconductor. The extraordinarily high Debye temperature and relatively low λ indicate the importance of carbon may be comparable to or even eclipsing that of hydrogen in the pursuit of higher Tc in ambient.