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  • Open Access

High-temperature superconductivity in La4H23 below 100 GPa

Sam Cross1,*, Jonathan Buhot1, Annabelle Brooks1,2, William Thomas1, Annette Kleppe2, Oliver Lord3, and Sven Friedemann1,†

  • 1HH Wills Laboratory, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TL, United Kingdom
  • 2Diamond Light Source, Chilton, Oxfordshire OX11 0DE, United Kingdom
  • 3Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1RJ, United Kingdom

  • *sc16434@bristol.ac.uk
  • †sven.friedemann@bristol.ac.uk
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Phys. Rev. B 109, L020503 – Published 12 January, 2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.109.L020503

Abstract

High-temperature superconductivity has been observed in binary hydrides such as LaH10 at pressures close to 180GPa, whereby hydrogen cagelike structures have been identified as a common motif beneficial for high critical temperatures Tc. Efforts are now focused on finding hydride high-temperature superconductors at lower pressures. We present evidence for high-temperature superconductivity in binary La4H23 at a pressure of P=95GPa, with A15-type arrangement of the lanthanum atoms in the type-I clathrate structure. We synthesize La4H23 from a lanthanum film capped with a palladium catalyst promoting the dissociation of hydrogen. In resistance measurements, we observe superconductivity with a transition temperature Tc∼90K. The A15-type lanthanum sublattice is identified in x-ray diffraction on the same sample, in agreement with previous x-ray diffraction and structure prediction studies. Our study reinforces the favorability of cagelike networks of the hydrogen lattice for high-temperature superconductivity.

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Outline

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Phys. Rev. B 109, L020503– Published 12 January, 2024
  • Received 17 August 2023
  • Revised 29 November 2023
  • Accepted 8 December 2023
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