Evidence Against Superconductivity in Flux Trapping Experiments on Hydrides Under High Pressure

Abstract

It has recently been reported that hydrogen-rich materials under high-pressure trap magnetic flux, a tell-tale signature of superconductivity (Minkov et al., Trapped magnetic flux in hydrogen-rich high-temperature superconductors, Ref. 1). Here, we point out that under the protocol used in these experiments the measured results indicate that the materials don’t trap magnetic flux. Instead, the measured results either are experimental artifacts or originate in magnetic properties of the sample or its environment unrelated to superconductivity. Together with other experimental evidence analyzed earlier, this clearly indicates that these materials are not superconductors.