Achievement

Ever since superconductivity was discovered in 1911, scientists have been searching to find superconductors with high transition temperatures. Previous work at Cornell showed that ternary and higher compounds containing Li, Be, and B are possible candidates. As a part of this larger investigation of the Li/Be/B ternary system, IGERT Fellow Alexandra McSorley has studied the Li/B binary system over a range of pressures, both theoretically and experimentally. Her computations predict multiple experimentally unknown stoichiometries (Li2B, Li3B2, Li5B4) should be stable at both ambient and higher pressures. These calculations also predict that the known LiB structure will undergo a phase transition at high pressures. McSorley is currently working with Dr. Leonid Dubrovinsky and Dr. Natalia Dubrovinskaia at the University of Bayreuth on the synthesis of these new, predicted Li/B phases at high pressures.