Structures and Potential Superconductivity inSiH4at High Pressure: En Route to “Metallic Hydrogen”

A way to circumvent the high pressures needed to metallize hydrogen is to “precompress” it in hydrogen-rich molecules, a strategy probed theoretically for silane. We show that phases with tetrahedral ${\mathrm{SiH}}_4$ molecules should undergo phase transitions with sixfold- and eightfold-coordinate Si appearing above 25 GPa. The most stable structure found can be metallized at under a megabar and at a compression close to the prediction of Goldhammer-Herzfeld criterion. According to a BCS-like estimate, metallic silane should be a high-temperature superconductor.