Superconductivity Near Room Temperature

Writing in Nature, Drozdov et al.1 report several key results that confirm that, when compressed to pressures of more than one million times Earth’s atmospheric pressure, lanthanum hydride compounds become superconducting at 250 K — a higher temperature than for any other known material. Then, in 2018, two independent research groups reported, almost simultaneously, that compressed lanthanum hydride compounds might exhibit superconductivity at even higher temperatures, ranging from 215 K to perhaps as high as 280 K (refs 6–8)6–8. The common features of these hydrogen sulfide and lanthanum hydride superconductors are that they are rich in hydrogen and that superconductivity emerges only under pressures above about one million times atmospheric pressure.

Source: www.nature.com