| Superconducting high pressure phase of germane (2008) | |||||||||||||||
Abstract | |||||||||||||||
| 4 pages, 3 figures.-- PACS nrs.: 74.70.Ad, 74.10.+v, 74.25.Jb, 74.62.Fj.. High-pressure structures of germane (GeH4) are explored through ab initio evolutionary methodology to reveal a metallic monoclinic structure of C2/c (4 molecules/cell). The C2/c structure consists of layerlike motifs containing novel "H2" units. Enthalpy calculations suggest a remarkably wide decomposition (Ge+H2) pressure range of 0–196 GPa, above which C2/c structure is stable. Perturbative linear-response calculations for C2/c GeH4 at 220 GPa predict a large electron-phonon coupling parameter λ of 1.12 and the resulting superconducting critical temperature reaches 64 K.. G. G., Y. M., and T. C. are thankful for financial support from the China 973 Program under Grant No. 2005CB724400, the NSAF of China under Grant No. 10676011, the Program for 2005 New Century Excellent Talents in University, and the Cheung Kong Scholars Program of China. Y. M. and A. R. O. gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Swiss National Science Foundation (Grant 200021-111847/1). A.B. acknowledges financial support from the EC 6th framework Network of Excellence NANOQUANTA (NMP4-CT-2004-500198).. Peer reviewed | |||||||||||||||
Publication details | |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||