Academic literature on the topic 'Superhydrides'

Abstract This final chapter explores what is needed in the future to realise the superconducting revolution that was promised with the discovery of high temperature superconductors. The holy grail has always been regarded as room temperature superconductivity, and this has recently been achieved in superhydride materials. The problem is that they only work at incredibly high pressures so they are by no means engineering materials. However, having a high critical temperature is not necessarily the most important property for a superconductor to be useful in real applications. How much current it can carry, how much magnetic field it can withstand and how easy it is to manufacture tend to be more important in practice. Applications where superconductors will be crucial in the future are also discussed, including compact nuclear fusion reactors, electric aircraft and quantum computers.

Superconductors are materials that conduct electricity with no resistance below its critical temperature (Tc). To date, pure metals, metal alloys, oxides, hydrides and super hydrides are among structures that have been reported to exhibit excellent superconducting properties due to their unique electronic properties and lattice structure. Most researchers have widely reported on the fabrication, structure, properties and applications of cuprate and iron-based superconducting materials. The modification of cuprate-based and iron-based superconducting materials using lanthanides have shown to massively improve their physico-chemical properties and applications. Investigations on lanthanide superhydride superconductors which contain hydrogen framework structures such as LaH10 and YbH10 are a recent adventure in the field of superconductors. Lanthanide-based structures are considered as potential high temperature superconductors (HTSC) and can be used in high performance applications. The current chapter outlines the advances and prospects observed in lanthanide-based superconductors (LBSC) as modern and fascinating functional materials. There is some literature that has been dedicated to providing a review on superconductors but very few have reported on LBSC. This review chapter provides a general insight of the development of LBSC and their potential technological applications.