Abstract

The quest for room temperature superconductivity has obvious practical impetus, but the conceptual rationale is also a powerful motivation in itself. Superconductivity brings quantum mechanics from the atomic scale to the everyday length scale of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners and power transformers. But to achieve superconductivity under ambient temperatures would accomplish the significant additional triumph of translating quantum mechanics to everyday temperatures. Considerable effort has been expended in that quest especially over the past three decades with the discovery of cuprate, then pnictide, high-temperature superconductors (HTS). But the impetus for this quest for room temperature superconductivity is surely to be found originally in the work of Ashcroft half a century ago [1], when he suggested that metallic hydrogen could be a high-temperature superconductor. Using his numbers, T _c values in excess of 240 K might be anticipated.