Ying Sun, Jian Lv, Yu Xie, Hanyu Liu*, and Yanming Ma* , Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 097001, Published 26 August 2019

Superconductor is a phase without any electrical resistance when they are cooled below a critical temperature. Most of superconducting materials was thought to have to cool to low temperatures, which limited their application. A route to approach high superconductivity is the creation of a metallic hydrogen-rich compound at rather high pressure. Recently, Prof. Yanming Ma’s group employed in-house developed particle swarm optimizaiton CALYPSO, to predicte some unexpected superconducting hydrides like a metastable Li₂MgH₁₆ phase with unprecedently high critical temperature at high pressure.

This work proposed a method for designing novel ternary high-temperature superconductors via introducing metal elements into parent hydrides that contain a large amount of H₂ molecules. The present results provide a useful route for designing room-temperature superconductors under high pressure, and it is not unexpected that the method will stimulate further experimental and theoretical studies for exploration of a large variety of hydrogen-rich ternary or quaternary hydrides. This work was also highlighted by some pretigious outlets, Such as ScienceNews, selected for a viewpoint in APS Physics and Editors' suggestion as well as a PRL cover.

Unprecedently high critical temperature of superconducting Li₂MgH₁₆ at high pressure.

This paper is solely done by Prof. Ma’s group. Ph.D candidate Ying Sun is the first author. Prof. Hanyu Liu and Prof. Yanming Ma are the corresponding authors of this paper. Other co-authors include Prof. Jian Lv and Prof. Yu Xie. 

Read more at Physical Review Letter:
https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.097001

The paper was also highlighted in ScienceNews et al.:

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/predicted-superconductor-record-breaking-temperature-200-celsius

https://physics.aps.org/articles/v12/96

https://journals.aps.org/prl/issues/123/9