Scientists have confirmed the existence of a predicted room temperature superconductor, while explaining the microscopic mechanism that distinguishes it from a similar one discovered several years ago. The work, published in the journal Physical Review B, offers “a theoretical blueprint for the future design of superior superconductor hydrides” the physicists write.

High temperature superconductors have been a holy grail of materials sciences for decades. There has been success in finding metal clathrate superhydrides such as LaH₁₀. (“Superhydrides” are hydrogen-rich materials.) In 2018 the discovery of its superconductivity was announced in a preprint; and half a year later in the journal Nature.

Its critical temperature, below which the material is superconducting (offers no resistance to an electric current, and magnetic fields are expelled from the material) was up to −13°C, a record high at the time, albeit at a pressure of 188 billion pascals (GPa)—1.9 million times the atmosphere’s surface pressure on Earth.