Pressure-induced formation of cubic lutetium hydrides derived from trigonal LuH$_3$

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a fervent search for room-temperature superconductivity within the binary hydrides. However, as the number of untested compounds dwindled, it became natural to begin searching within the ternary hydrides. This led to the controversial discovery of room-temperature superconductivity at only 1GPa in nitrogen-doped lutetium hydride [Dasenbrock-Gammon et al., Nature 615, 244 (2023)] and consequently provided much impetus for the synthesis of nitrogen-based ternary hydrides. Here, we report the synthesis of stable trigonal LuH$_3$ by hydrogenating pure lutetium which was subsequently pressurised to $\sim$2GPa in a dilute-N$_2$/He-rich pressure medium. Raman spectroscopy and x-ray diffraction were used to characterise the structures throughout. After depressurising, energy-dispersive and wavelength-dispersive X-ray spectroscopies characterised the final compound. Though our compound under pressure exhibits similar structural behaviour to the Dasenbrock-Gammon et al. sample, we do not observe any nitrogen within the structure of the recovered sample at ambient pressure. We observe two cubic structures under pressure that simultaneously explain the X-ray diffraction and Raman spectra observed: the first corresponds well to $Fm\overline{3}m$ LuH$_{2+x}$, whilst the latter is an $Ia\overline{3}$-type structure.