High Temperature Superconductivity: A Simple Model Exploiting Hydrogen Bonds

TL;DR

This paper presents a simple model based on BCS theory that explains high temperature superconductivity in hydrogen-based materials, reproducing experimental effects like isotope shifts and pressure-induced T_c enhancement.

Contribution

It introduces a straightforward model that accounts for key experimental phenomena in hydrogen-based high temperature superconductors, linking proton dynamics to superconducting properties.

Findings

Reproduces isotope effect observed in experiments.

Explains T_c enhancement with pressure.

Highlights the role of proton level splitting in superconductivity.

Abstract

Lately, there has been much interest in high temperature superconductors, and more recently hydrogen-based superconductors. This work offers a simple model which explains the behavior of the superconducting gap based on BCS theory, and reproduces most effects seen in experiments, including the isotope effect and T_c enhancement as a function of pressure. We show that this is due to a combination of the factors appearing in the gap equation: the matrix element between the proton states, and the level splitting of the proton.