Ricerc@Sapienza

In december 2014, superconductivity with a record critical temperature of 203 K was reported in a sulfur hydride (SH3) at a pressure of 200 GPa. SH3 is not only the current record-holder for high-temperature superconductivity, but also the first example of a new superconductor which was entirely predicted from first principles.This discovery has stimulated an intense activity to search for new and better superconductors, which can operate at higher temperature and lower pressures.
In this project, we propose to study the high-pressure behaviour of ternary hydrides (gallates and alienates of alkali metals and alkaline earths); these are commercial materials which are routinely used in hydrogen storage applications. Compared to binary hydrides, like SH3, ternary hydrides permit to tune independently bonding characteristics and charge doping, and we believe this could be effectively exploited to reduce the pressure needed to achieve metallisation and superconductivity. In addition to exploring the high-pressure phase diagram with complementary experiments and ab-initio calculations, we will use machine learning techniques to identify the main features that lead to metallization, and thus superconductivity, in high-pressure hydrides.

Our team comprises experts in ab-initio (DFT) calculations and crystal structure prediction, theory of superconductivity, machine learning and high-pressure spectroscopy and thus possesses all necessary expertise to carry out the project.