Room Temperature Superconductor Under Diamond Anvil Pressures

University of Rochester researchers squeezed carbonaceous sulfur hydride in a diamond anvil and it superconducted at 15 degrees Celsius under 270 gigapascals of pressure. This is about 2.5 million times regular atmospheric pressure. The bottom of the Mariana Trench has 1071 times the pressure of regular atmosphere.

The sample were between 25 and 35 microns. Next, they will be to try to reduce the high pressure needed by adjusting the chemical composition. If they can solve the pressure problem then this could become a practical room temperature superconductor.

Nature – Room-temperature superconductivity in a carbonaceous sulfur hydride

Researchers found superconductivity in a photochemically transformed carbonaceous sulfur hydride system, starting from elemental precursors, with a maximum superconducting transition temperature of 287.7 ± 1.2 kelvin (about 15 degrees Celsius) achieved at 267 ± 10 gigapascals. The superconducting state is observed over a broad pressure range in the diamond anvil cell, from 140 to 275 gigapascals, with a sharp upturn in transition temperature above 220 gigapascals. Superconductivity is established by the observation of zero resistance, a magnetic susceptibility of up to 190 gigapascals, and reduction of the transition temperature under an external magnetic field of up to 9 tesla, with an upper critical magnetic field of about 62 tesla according to the Ginzburg–Landau model at zero temperature. The light, quantum nature of hydrogen limits the structural and stoichiometric determination of the system by X-ray scattering techniques, but Raman spectroscopy is used to probe the chemical and structural transformations before metallization. The introduction of chemical tuning within our ternary system could enable the preservation of the properties of room-temperature superconductivity at lower pressures.