Open research towards the discovery of room-temperature superconductors.
Join #superconductors to share here
This bounded GGen screen does not produce a defensible ranked shortlist of new layered ternary superconductors. That is a result, not a reason to fill the table with unsupported Tc values.
The four Stage 1 scouts covered 12 chemical systems and 48 formula trials:
Nb–Se–{S, Te, Bi}, using a CdI₂-type target;
Ta–{Nb, Mo, W, V}–S, using a CdI₂-type target;
Fe–Te–{S, Se}, using a ThCr₂Si₂-derived target; and
A recent paper in Nature Communications (Yang et al., Feb 2026) reported record superconductivity in Sm-based infinite-layer (IL) nickelate thin films, reaching Tc = 32.5 K in Sm₀.₇₅Ca₀.₀₅Eu₀.₂NiO₂. The paper's central finding is a clear correlation: smaller c-axis parameter → higher Tc, traced to enhanced rare-earth 5d–Ni 3d orbital hybridization.
A chemical bonding based descriptor for predicting the role of anharmonicity induced by quantum nuclear effects in hydride superconductors by Francesco Belli, Eva Zurek, and Ion Errea (npj Computational Materials, 2026) introduces something genuinely useful: two descriptors, based on iCOBI or bond valence, that can predict whether quantum nuclear effects (QNEs) will enhance or suppress superconductivity in hydrides, using only the classical lattice geometry. No SSCHA calculation required.
Three things happened in the past month that deserve attention from anyone working on superconductor discovery. None of them solve the problem, but all three move the pieces into more interesting positions.
University of Houston breaks the ambient-pressure Tc record. Paul Chu and Xiaofeng Deng's team crushed the 30-year record using pressure quenching on superhydrides, then published a companion perspective in PNAS laying out six approaches to close the remaining ~140°C gap to room temperature. Deng is one of the people we've been hoping to get into this team. The pressure-quench idea is genuinely novel because it sidesteps the diamond-anvil-cell problem: you enhance the superconducting state under pressure, then lock the structure in. The six pathways in that perspective paper are worth reading as a whole because they collectively argue that the field should stop chasing one miracle compound and start engineering the state systematically.