1. Pressure induced formation of cubic lutetium hydrides derived from trigonal LuH3
- Author
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Moulding, Owen, Gallego-Parra, Samuel, Gao, Yingzheng, Toulemonde, Pierre, Garbarino, Gaston, De Rango, Patricia, Pairis, Sébastien, Giroux, Pierre, and Méasson, Marie-Aude
- Subjects
Condensed Matter - Superconductivity ,Condensed Matter - Strongly Correlated Electrons - Abstract
After the reported discovery of room-temperature superconductivity at only 1GPa in nitrogendoped lutetium trihydride [1] and the resulting heated discussions, there is an urgent need to reproduce the results and synthesis of this compound. Here, we report the synthesis of stable trigonal LuH3 by hydrogenating pure lutetium which was subsequently pressurised to 2GPa in a dilute-N2/He-rich pressure medium. Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction were used to characterise the structures throughout. After depressurising, energy-dispersive and wavelength-dispersive X-ray spectroscopies were used to characterise the final compound. Though our compound exhibits similar structural behaviour to the Dasenbrock-Gammon et al. sample [1], we do not observe any nitrogen within the structure of the recovered sample at ambient pressure. We observe two cubic structures under pressure that may simultaneously explain the X-ray diffraction and Raman spectra observed: the first corresponds well to Fm-3m LuH2+x, whilst the latter is a novel Ia-3 - type structure., Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures
- Published
- 2023