Soft superconductivity in covalent bismuth dihydride BiH$_2$ under extreme conditions

Abstract

Strong magnetic fields provide a unique environment for investigating the fundamental properties of superconducting materials, especially for hydride superconductors with large upper critical fields. Following this idea, we have investigated the effect of pulsed magnetic fields on covalent bismuth dihydride (BiH$_2$), successfully synthesized under pressure up to 211 GPa. The electrical resistance measurements indicate that the superconducting phase $P2_1/m$-BiH$_2$ exhibits the highest superconducting critical temperature ($T_c$) of 70 K among MH$_2$-type hydride apart from H$_2$S. The electrical transport experiments under both pulsed (up to 50 T) and steady magnetic fields (up to 16 T) for $P2_1/m$- and $C2/m$-BiH$_2$ indicate that the upper critical fields $\mu_0 H_{c2}(0)$ = 12--16 T are unusually low, much lower than that of clathrate-like metal polyhydrides with similar $T_c$. This is due to the unexpectedly high Fermi velocity in BiH$_2$, about $1.1 \times 10^6$ m/s, which allows to classify BiH$_2$ as a 'soft' molecular superconducting hydride with relatively weak vortex pinning. Measurements of the current-voltage characteristics in the pulsed mode make it possible to experimentally establish the temperature dependence of the critical current density (the maximum $J_c(0) = 10$ kA/mm$^2$), which indicates the presence of two $s$-wave superconducting gaps in BiH$_2$ at 172--176 GPa: $\Delta_L(0) = 6.9 \pm 1.2$ meV and $\Delta_S(0) \sim 1.5$ meV.