Record-High Tc and Dome-Shaped Superconductivity in a Medium-Entropy Alloy TaNbHfZr under Pressure up to 160 GPa

Superconductivity has been one of the focal points in medium and high-entropy alloys (MEAs-HEAs) since the discovery of the body-centered cubic (bcc) HEA superconductor in 2014. Until now, the superconducting transition temperature (Tc) of most MEA and HEA superconductors has not exceeded 10 K. Here, we report a TaNbHfZr bulk MEA superconductor crystallized in the BCC structure with a Tc of 15.3 K which set a new record. During compression, Tc follows a dome-shaped curve. It reaches a broad maximum of roughly 15 K at around 70 GPa before decreasing to 9.3 K at 157.2 GPa. First-principles calculations attribute the dome-shaped curve to two competing effects, that is, the enhancement of the logarithmically averaged characteristic phonon frequency ωlog and the simultaneous suppression of the electron-phonon coupling constant λ. Thus, TaNbHfZr MEA may have a promising future for studying the underlying quantum physics, as well as developing new applications under extreme conditions.