Uranium polyhydrides at moderate pressures: Prediction, synthesis, and expected superconductivity.

ABSTRACT: Hydrogen-rich hydrides attract great attention due to recent theoretical (1) and then experimental discovery of record high-temperature superconductivity in H₃S [T _c = 203 K at 155 GPa (2)]. Here we search for stable uranium hydrides at pressures up to 500 GPa using ab initio evolutionary crystal structure prediction. Chemistry of the U-H system turned out to be extremely rich, with 14 new compounds, including hydrogen-rich UH₅, UH₆, U₂H₁₃, UH₇, UH₈, U₂H₁₇, and UH₉. Their crystal structures are based on either common face-centered cubic or hexagonal close-packed uranium sublattice and unusual H₈ cubic clusters. Our high-pressure experiment

SUBMITTER: Kruglov IA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6184697 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature