> one of the researchers carefully sandwiches lanthanum foil and hydrogen gas in between the diamonds’ flat surfaces. Then [...] the researcher generates pressu

> one of the researchers carefully sandwiches lanthanum foil and hydrogen gas in between the diamonds’ flat surfaces. Then [...] the researcher generates pressures of at least 170 GPa—pressures similar to those in the Earth’s core—between the diamond tips. Then [...] the team heat the material with laser pulses, producing the chemical reaction that would create the material. It is always humbling to read about what it takes to do cutting edge research. This article was good at conveying the efforts required. I do wonder if studying these simple hydrogen-based compounds is a dead end though. I believe the same mechanism (phonon-electron coupling) is at work here, than in conventional superconductors, so the physics is well-understood. It's been established that this mechanism can only support superconductivity up to 30-40 K at normal pressures [1]. Unconventional superconductors, on the other hand, don't have this hard limit, so there is probably more knowledge to be gained from studying those, which could be used to propose new, better superconductors. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BCS_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BCS_theory