http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08/thanks-bit-diamond-smashing-practical-superconductivity-could-be-close-reality

ROCHESTER, NEW YORK—Every year, Ranga Dias pulverizes about $100,000 in diamonds, crushing them to a gray powder he tosses in the trash. It’s worth it. The superhard gems were sacrificed to achieve a goal researchers have chased for generations.

Before their demise, pairs of the 2-millimeter-diameter gems serve as jaws in a miniature vise. In fall 2020, Dias, a physicist at the University of Rochester (U of R), and colleagues used the setup to squash a few specks of carbon and sulfur along with a whiff of hydrogen gas to a pressure near that found at Earth’s center. The force rearranged the elements into carbon sulfur hydride (CSH), reported to be the first substance that can conduct electricity with no electrical losses at room temperature—a chilly room, to be sure. That experiment ended the same way nearly all such efforts do: The diamond jaws exploded, and the world’s only room-temperature superconductor vanished in a puff.