The Retention at Ambient of the High-Pressure-Induced Metastable Superconducting Phases in Antimony Single Crystals

Abstract We have investigated, resistively, non-superconducting single-crystalline antimony and detected several structural transitions under pressures up to 63 GPa. Superconductivity associated with the m-HGL phase with a superconducting transition temperature (Tc) of 3.4 K above ∼ 9 GPa and the bcc phase with a Tc of 4.0 K above ∼ 30 GPa have been successfully retained up to 135 K and 110 K, respectively, upon the complete and rapid removal of pressure at 77 K. The observations offer a possible path to retain at ambient the pressure-induced metastable superconducting phase in HgBa2Ca2Cu3O8+δ with a Tc of 164 K under ∼ 31 GPa and in LaH10 with a Tc of ∼ 260 K under ∼ 200 GPa, which would make their applications practical by removing the serious high-pressure constraint. The same is also true for superconducting topological devices using antimony.