Effect of Magnetic Impurities on Superconductivity in LaH 10 .

Polyhydrides are a novel class of superconducting materials with extremely high critical parameters, which is very promising for sensor applications. On the other hand, a complete experimental study of the best so far known superconductor, lanthanum superhydride LaH ₁₀ , encounters a serious complication because of the large upper critical magnetic field H _C2 (0), exceeding 120-160 T. It is found that partial replacement of La atoms by magnetic Nd atoms results in significant suppression of superconductivity in LaH ₁₀ : each at% of Nd causes a decrease in T _C by 10-11 K, helping to control the critical parameters of this compound. Strong pulsed magnetic fields up to 68 T are used to study the Hall effect, magnetoresistance, and the magnetic phase diagram of ternary metal polyhydrides for the first time. Surprisingly, (La,Nd)H ₁₀ demonstrates completely linear H _C2 (T) ∝ |T - T _C |, which calls into question the applicability of the Werthamer-Helfand-Hohenberg model for polyhydrides. The suppression of superconductivity in LaH ₁₀ by magnetic Nd atoms and the robustness of T _C with respect to nonmagnetic impurities (e.g., Y, Al, C) under Anderson's theorem gives new experimental evidence of the isotropic (s-wave) character of conventional electron-phonon pairing in lanthanum decahydride.
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