Dispersion Interactions in Proposed Covalent Superhydride Superconductors

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2022

Publication Title

Physical Review B

Volume

105

Issue

2

Abstract

Recent developments in high temperature superconducting materials under high pressure have made numerical evaluation of the superconducting transition temperature (Tc) of predicted materials critically important as a means to identification. Existing methods of calculating Tc often do not agree with each other or experiment, often due to the large number of complex factors that contribute to this property; among them is the neglect of dispersion interactions in commonly used density functionals. Here, we evaluate the effect of including dispersion interactions on the predicted superconducting properties of two examples of the covalent superhydride class of very high-Tc superconducting materials. In both cases, dispersion is found to have sizable effects, increasing the electron-phonon coupling as compared to the reference case of elemental niobium. A detailed investigation traces the origin of this effect in a 270 GPa R3mCSH7 [Cui, Phys. Rev. B 101, 134504 (2020)2469-995010.1103/PhysRevB.101.134504] structure to structural distortions driven by long-range electron-phonon interactions rather than novel bonding networks.

Controlled Subject

Superconductors; Physics

Disciplines

Heat Transfer, Combustion | Materials Chemistry

UNLV article access

Search your library

Share

COinS