High-pressure studies of neodymium-doped lanthanum superhydrides*

Hydrogen-rich hydrides are well known to show superconductivity in the vicinity of room temperature under pressure. The discovery of very high-T_c superconductivity in binary hydride systems accelerated the field of hydride superconductivity greatly. There is current interest in ternary hydrides to further enhance the critical temperature and reduce the synthesis pressure. Here we investigated the effect of doping and substitution of magnetic ions in these hydrides focusing on the La-H system including its superhydrides. We explore the effect of magnetic neodymium ions on the structure, stability, and T_c of these lanthanum-based hydrides. The work involves in-situ powder x-ray diffraction for the synthesis of the ternary Nd-La-H system at high pressure-temperature conditions.