British multidisciplinary journal Nature has named ten people who, according to the edition, made the greatest contribution to the development of science in 2015. The Nature’s list of physicist includes a graduate of the MEPhI Department “Solid state physics” of 1973 Mikhail Eremets.

The editors of the journal Nature has singled out the scientist for development in the field of superconductors. In 1970-80-ies Mikhail Eremets worked at the Institute of high pressure physics in Troitsk, now he conducts research at the Max Planck Institute in Mainz (Germany).

The journal Nature marked an article published in August 2015 by scientists under the leadership of Mikhail Eremets and Aleksandr Drozdov. Experts have discovered that hydrogen sulfide becomes superconducting at a temperature of -70°C and under very high pressure.

Independent experts have not confirmed the results yet; however, Mikhail Eremets is already planning new experiments to create superconductors that will work at normal atmospheric pressure.

It is not the first recognition scientist’s discoveries by the world scientific community. In early September 2015 the Rome International Center for Materials Science awarded gold medals named after an outstanding Italian physicist Ugo Fano to Mikhail Eremets and Lev Gorkiy (also a MEPhI graduate of 1953) for an outstanding experimental observation of superconductivity in H2S at a temperature of 203 K at high pressures.

In October, Mikhail Ivanovich came to MEPhI and read a lecture on “Superconductivity in H2S at 203 K at high pressure” for undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Photo: Mike Theiler / Reuters