High pressure serves as a path finding tool towards novel structures, including those with very high Tc. The superconductivity in sulfur hydrides with record value of Tc =203 K (!) is caused by the phonon mechanism. However, the picture differs from the conventional one in important ways. The phonon spectrum in sulfur hydride is both broad and has a complex structure. High value of T c is mainly due to strong coupling to the high-frequency optical modes, although the acoustic phonons also make a noticeable contribution. New approach is described; it generalizes the standard treatment of the phonon mechanism and makes it possible to obtain an analytical expression for Tc. It turns out that, unlike in the conventional case, the value of the isotope coefficient varies with the pressure and reflects the impact of the optical modes. The phase diagram, that is the pressure dependence of Tc, is rather peculiar. A crucial feature is that increasing pressure results in a series of structural transitions, including the one, which yields the superconducting phase with the record Tc. In a narrow region near P≈150 GPa the critical temperature rises sharply from Tc ≈120K to Tc ≈200K. The sharp structural transition, which produces the high Tc phase, is a first-order phase transition caused by interaction between the order parameter and lattice deformations. A remarkable feature of the electronic spectrum in the high Tc phase is the appearance of small pockets at the Fermi level. Their presence leads to a two-gap spectrum, which 2 can, in principle, be observed, with the future use of tunneling spectroscopy. This feature leads to non-monotonic and strongly asymmetric pressure dependence of Tc. Other hydrides can be expected to display even higher values of Tc, up to room temperature. The fundamental challenge lays in creation a structure capable of displaying high Tc at ambient pressure.

Penning and associative ionisation of highly excited rubidium atoms View the table of contents for this issue, or go to the journal homepage for more

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