On the high-pressure superconducting phase in platinum hydride

Motivated by the ambiguous experimental data for the superconducting phase in silane (SiH4), which may originate from platinum hydride (PtH), we provide a theoretical study of the superconducting state in the latter alloy. The quantitative estimates of the thermodynamics of PtH at 100 GPa are given for a wide range of Coulomb pseudopotential values (mu*) within the Eliashberg formalism. The obtained critical temperature value (T-C is an element of < 12.94, 20.01 > for mu* is an element of < 0.05, 0.15 >) agrees well with the experimental T-C for SiH4, which may be ascribed to PtH. Moreover, the calculated characteristic thermodynamic ratios exceed the predictions of the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory, implying the occurrence of strong-coupling and retardation effects in PtH. We note that our results may be of high relevance for future theoretical and experimental studies on hydrides.