High-temperature superconductivity using a model of hydrogen bonds.

Kaplan, Daniel; Imry, Yoseph · Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A · 2018

basic_science · Level V

Where this comes from

Abstract

Recently, there has been much interest in high-temperature superconductors and more recently in hydrogen-based superconductors. This work offers a simple model that explains the behavior of the superconducting gap based on naive BCS (Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer) theory and reproduces most effects seen in experiments, including the isotope effect and [Formula: see text] enhancement as a function of pressure. We show that this is due to a combination of the factors appearing in the gap equation: the matrix element between the proton states and the level splitting of the proton.