High pressure hydride superconductors: more than T_c determination

*Feng Du ¹⁾, Chunyu (Mark) Guo ²⁾, Alexander P. Drozdov ¹⁾, Panpan Kong ³⁾, Vasily S. Minkov ¹⁾, Bin Shen ⁴⁾, Philipp Gegenwart ⁴⁾, Philip J. W. Moll ²⁾, and Mikhail I. Eremets ¹⁾

¹⁾ Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, ²⁾ Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, ³⁾ Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and ⁴⁾ Center for Electronic Correlations and Magnetism, University of Augsburg

*feng.du@mpic.de

Hydride superconductors are renowned for their high critical temperatures at megabar pressures [1]. While most previous studies have focused on determining their superconducting transition temperatures, detailed investigations of their pairing mechanism and global quantum coherence have been limited. Here, we report on our recent developments with H₃S and La-based hydrides at megabar pressures, with a focus on electron tunneling and quantum coherent transport. Using high-pressure microfabricated transport platforms, we probe the superconducting gap features [2] and Cooper-pair transport. These results would offer a more comprehensive understanding of the pairing mechanism in hydride superconductors and pave the way for potential quantum functionalities in superconducting devices operating near room temperature.

References:

[1] Drozdov, A., Eremets, M., Troyan, I. et al. Conventional superconductivity at 203 kelvin at high pressures in the sulfur hydride system. Nature 525, 73–76 (2015).

[2] Du, F., Drozdov, A.P., Minkov, V.S. et al. Superconducting gap of H₃S measured by tunnelling spectroscopy. Nature 641, 619–624 (2025).