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arXiv · 1512.07604

Superconductivity of novel tin hydrides (Sn$_n$H$_m$) under pressure

Abstract

With the motivation of discovering high-temperature superconductors, evolutionary algorithm is employed to search for all stable compounds in the Sn-H system. In addition to the traditional SnH$_4$, new hydrides SnH$_8$, SnH$_{12}$ and SnH$_{14}$ are found to be thermodynamically stable at high pressure. Dynamical stability and superconductivity of tin-hydrides are systematically investigated. I$\bar{4}$m2-SnH$_8$, C2/m-SnH$_{12}$ and C2/m-SnH$_{14}$ exhibit higher superconducting transition temperatures of 81, 93 and 97 K compared to the traditional compound SnH$_4$ with T$_c$ of 52 K at 200 GPa. An interesting bent H$_3^-$ in I$\bar{4}$m2-SnH$_8$ and novel liner H$_4^-$ in C2/m-SnH$_{12}$ are observed. All the new tin-hydrides remain metallic over their predicted range of stability. The intermediate-frequency wagging and bending vibrations have more contribution to electron-phonon coupling parameter than high-frequency stretching vibrations of H$_2$ and H$_3$.

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M. Mahdi Davari Esfahani, Zhenhai Wang, Artem R. Oganov, Huafeng Dong, Qiang Zhu, Shengnan Wang, Maksim S. Rakitin, Xiang-Feng Zhou. 2015-12-23. Superconductivity of novel tin hydrides (Sn$_n$H$_m$) under pressure. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep22873

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