A research team has demonstrated superconducting behavior in a nitrogen-doped lutetium hydride (Lu-N-H) material at 21°C (294 K) under a pressure of approximately 10 kbar (1 GPa). While still requiring pressure above ambient, this represents a dramatic reduction from the hundreds of gigapascals needed by previous near-room-temperature superconductors.
The material shows zero electrical resistance and the Meissner effect (magnetic flux expulsion) under these conditions. The mechanism appears to involve phonon-mediated pairing enhanced by the light hydrogen atoms and nitrogen dopant electronic states.
If reproducible and scalable, materials operating at moderate pressures could enable practical applications in power transmission, magnetic resonance imaging, and quantum computing without cryogenic cooling.