Room-Temperature Superconductivity in High-Pressure Hydrides: An electronic structure perspective*

Conventional Superconductivity near Room Temperature was observed for the first time almost fifty years after its theoretical prediction, when a superconducting critical temperature (T_c) of 203 K was reported in sulfur hydride, SH₃.[1] T_c’s exceeding 200 K have later been reported also in lanthanum and yttrium hydrides.[2]
In this talk, I will show how electronic structure methods can be used to understand the material-specific aspects that underlie high-T_c superconductivity in different classes of hydrides,[3] and identify strategies to reduce the pressure for high-T_c conventional superconductivity.[4]

[1] A. P. Drozdov et al, Nature 525, 73 (2015); M. Somayazulu et al, Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 027001 (2019); A.P. Drozdov et al, Nature 569, 528 (2019); I.A. Troyan et al., cond-mat/1908.01534; P.P. Kong et al., cond-mat/1909.10482.
[2] J. A. Flores-Livas, L. Boeri, A. Sanna, G. Profeta, R. Arita, M. Eremets, cond-mat/1905.06693; C. Heil, S. di Cataldo, G.B. Bachelet, L. Boeri, Phys. Rev. B 99, 220502 (2019); C. Heil, G. B. Bachelet, and L.Boeri, Phys. Rev. B 97, 214510 (2018); C. Kokail, W. von der Linden, and L. Boeri, Phys. Rev. Mat. 1, 074803 (2017); C. Heil and L. Boeri, Phys. Rev. B 92, 060508(R) (2015).