Enhancement of the superconducting critical temperature realized in the La-Ce-H system at moderate pressures

TL;DR

This study reports the synthesis of La-Ce-H ternary polyhydrides that exhibit superconductivity at 176 K under moderate pressures, with the highest critical field among polyhydrides, surpassing binary La-H systems.

Contribution

First demonstration of La-Ce-H ternary polyhydrides with high Tc at moderate pressures, expanding the family of high-temperature superconducting hydrides.

Findings

Superconductivity at 176 K preserved up to 100 GPa.

Highest upper critical field Hc2(0) of 216 T at 100 GPa.

Ternary La-Ce-H exhibits higher Tc than binary La-H at similar conditions.

Abstract

Covalent and ionic polyhydrides have become the two main camps in searching for the high-temperature superconductors under pressure. They have been considered as important platforms for exploring ternary or multiple hydrides in order to further increase the Tc or decrease the stabilization pressure. In this work, we successfully synthesized ternary hexagonal La-Ce polyhydrides stable in the pressure range of 95-130 GPa by laser-heating the La-Ce alloy (initial ratio La:Ce=2.5-3.5) in ammonia borane. Superconductivity at 176 K was strikingly preserved to about 100 GPa. The extrapolated upper critical field Hc2(0) reached 216 T at 100 GPa, the highest value among the synthesized polyhydrides. We also performed the contrast experiments and stabilized binary high-temperature superconducting LaHx with Tc-103 K at 78 GPa. In the pressure range of 95-130 GPa, the ternary hexagonal La-Ce-H system exhibits higher Tc than the binary La-H system, with the maximum difference of 100 K, and the compounds of both systems were synthesized at the same pressure and temperature conditions. These results clearly indicate that the discovered La-Ce-H system not only enriches the high-temperature superconducting hydrides but also realizes high-Tc at moderate pressures.