Ternary superhydrides under pressure of Anderson's theorem: Near-record superconductivity in (La,Sc)H₁₂

Lanthanum-hydrogen system and its derivatives remain among the most promising for achieving room-temperature superconductivity. In this study, we examined the formation of ternary lanthanum-scandium superhydrides at pressures up to 220 GPa. The primary product of the LaSc alloy's reaction with hydrogen is newly discovered cubic (La,Sc)H₁₂, demonstrating clear superconducting transition in all six channels of the van der Pauw scheme below 244-248 K. In this compound with an unusually large unit cell volume, virtually no magnetoresistance was observed in fields up to 68 Tesla. Synthesized samples of (La,Sc)H₁₂ demonstrate pronounced superconducting diode and SQUID-like effects at a record high temperature of 226 K. Furthermore, our analysis revealed the formation of lower hexagonal polyhydrides (La,Sc)H₆₋₇, which could potentially account for the anomaly in electrical resistance observed near 274 K. This anomalous behavior may be of a superconducting nature, since low-temperature diffraction studies indicate the absence of corresponding structural phase transitions in La-Sc polyhydrides.