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Abstract:
Pressure-induced superconductivity and structural phase transitions in phosphorus (P) are studied by resistivity
measurements under pressures up to 170 GPa and by fully
ab initio
crystal structure exploration and
superconductivity calculations up to 350 GPa. Two distinct superconducting transition temperature (
T
C
)vs
pressure (
P
) trends at low pressure have been reported more than 30 years ago, and we are able to devise a
consistent explanation founded on thermodynamically metastable phases of black phosphorus. Our experimental
and theoretical results form a single, consistent picture which not only provides a clear understanding of elemental
P under pressure but also sheds light on the longstanding and unsolved
anomalous
superconductivity trends.
Moreover, at higher pressures we predict a similar scenario of multiple metastable structures which coexist
beyond their thermodynamical stability range. We observe that all the metastable structures systematically exhibit
larger transition temperatures than the ground-state structures, indicating that the exploration of metastable phases
represents a promising route to design materials with improved superconducting properties.
