Superconductivity from insulating elements under high pressure

The insulating and superconducting states would seem to have very different characteristics. Can any insulator become a superconductor? One proven method, doping an insulating material with carriers, can create itinerant states inside the gap between the conduction and valence bands. Another method is to squeeze the structure by applying pressure. Pressure can expand the bandwidth and also narrow the energy band gap. So the first step to turn an insulator into a superconductor is to make it metallic. Here we review our experimental research and results on superconductivity induced by applying pressure to insulating molecular systems such as elemental molecules. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.