Stabilizing Room-Temperature Superconductivity in Hydrides by Nonequilibrium Driving

Metallic hydrogen and hydride materials are promising candidates to realize room-temperature superconductivity. Due to the high phonon frequency and intermediate coupling strength, the transition temperatures of various high-pressure hydrides have been predicted to be above 250 K, which experiments have further verified. To further increase the transition temperature above room temperature, we propose a dynamic approach, which can be realized by driving hydrides with mid-IR lasers. In the steady state driven by light, we simulate the increase of the density of states (DOS) via a combined Floquet and first-principles simulation. The increased DOS gives rise to the electron-phonon coupling constant λ for materials at all pressures, which increases the T_c based on the Migdal-Eliashberg and McMillan-Allen-Dynes theory. Using first-principles simulations and realistic pump conditions, we demonstrate that the transition temperature of LaH₁₀ can be increased above the room temperature.