AI-MI–Supported Study Confirms Superconductivity Across a Family Built Around an AI-Predicted Compound

An artificial-intelligence method predicted that PtPb₃Bi should be a superconductor. A new AI-MI–supported study went looking — and found superconductivity across the whole family of compounds it belongs to.

“Superconductors in the PtPb₃Bi Structure Type,” published in Chemistry of Materials on August 19, 2026, reports the synthesis and characterization of MPb_4−xBi_x (M = Au, Pd, Rh). All three are superconductors, with transitions at 4.9, 4.2 and 3.4 K respectively. Electrical resistivity, magnetization and specific-heat measurements establish that the superconducting state is bulk, and that all three are moderately anisotropic conventional type-II superconductors. Substituting nickel, whose radius is considerably smaller, instead collapses the structure into a Pb-substituted NiBi₃ type.

The work establishes MPb_4−xBi_x as a family of anisotropic superconductors and as a platform for studying how site disorder and Pb–Bi mixing govern superconductivity in heavy-element intermetallics.

AI-MI junior investigator Fatmagül Katmer and AI-MI co-PI Leslie M. Schoop (Princeton University) are among the authors, with Lior Verbitsky, Amira Merino, Scott B. Lee, Jaime M. Moya, Sigalit Aharon, Sudipta Chatterjee, Grigorii Skorupskii, Josh Leeman and Gabrielle Carrel.

Source: Chemistry of Materials