EHPRGIn memoriam: Dr. Mikhail I. Eremets (1949–2024)
On November 16, 2024, the world of physics lost one of its brightest stars: Dr. Mikhail I. Eremets, a pioneering experimentalist whose groundbreaking work in high-pressure physics reshaped human’s understanding of superconductivity. Dr. Eremets passed away at the age of 75 after a prolonged illness, leaving behind a legacy of discovery, innovation, and inspiration that will guide future generations of scientists.
Born on January 3, 1949, in Pinsk, then part of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, Mikhail Eremets studied physics at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MEPhI) and completed his PhD at the Institute for High Pressure Physics in Troitsk, with a thesis on the “Electronic structure of the valence band of Te under pressure”. He worked for several years in Troisk, until, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, his career took him across the globe: research positions at the Carnegie Institution (USA), Osaka University (Japan), laboratories in France, the Netherlands, the UK, and ultimately Germany, where he found his long-term scientific home at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPIC) in Mainz. From 2001 until his passing in 2024, Eremets led the independent High-Pressure Chemistry and Physics research group at MPIC. In recognition of his exceptional achievements, the Max Planck Society extended his position as a group leader beyond the usual retirement age, a rare honor that reflected his unmatched scientific impact.
Dr. Eremets’ most famous contribution was the discovery of near-room-temperature superconductivity in hydrogen-rich materials under extreme pressure. In 2014, he and his team reported superconductivity at a record-breaking 203 K in H3S synthesized inside a diamond anvil cell at pressures exceeding one million atmospheres. This result – later confirmed through decisive magnetic susceptibility measurements and published in Nature in 2015 – sparked a scientific revolution. It reignited global efforts to achieve room-temperature superconductivity, setting off a wave of research that led in a few years to the discovery of many new hydrides with in even higher critical temperatures (Tc). In 2019, Eremets’ group set a second still unmatched record, reporting a Tc of ~250 K in LaH10.
Eremets’ scientific mission traced its roots to the 1968 proposal by Neil Ashcroft, who suggested that metallic hydrogen could exhibit room-temperature superconductivity due to the conventional phonon-mediated mechanism. Recognizing the enormous pressures needed to achieve metallic hydrogen, Eremets pursued Ashcroft’s alternative proposal: using covalent hydrogen dominant alloys as materials containing “chemically pre-compressed” hydrogen to create hydrogen-rich compounds that metallize at lower pressures. This insight, combined with Eremets’ mastery of high-pressure experimental techniques, led to breakthroughs that many in the scientific community had considered impossible, until Eremets made them real.
But his contributions extended far beyond superconductivity. Eremets made fundamental discoveries in the behavior of materials at extreme pressures, including the creation of transparent dense sodium, the polymerization of nitrogen into a diamond-hard material with high energy density, the observation of semimetallic molecular hydrogen, the development of the diamond edge Raman pressure scale, and the synthesis of BN nanotubes under high-pressure and high-temperature conditions. His innovations were fueled by constant technical progress: Eremets was not just a scientist, but also a gifted engineer and instrument builder. He continuously advanced the capabilities of diamond anvil cells and other high-pressure devices, devising new techniques to probe electrical, magnetic, and optical properties of materials, phase transformations and material structure under the most extreme laboratory conditions.
Eremets’ work was recognized with numerous prestigious awards, among them the Bridgman Award (2017) from the International Association for the Advancement of High-Pressure Science and Technology, the James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials of the American Physical Society (2020), the Bernd T. Matthias Prize for Superconducting Materials (2022), the Falling Walls Breakthrough Winner in Physical Sciences (2020), the Ugo Fano Gold Medal (2015), an honorary doctorate from Leipzig University (2016), and the Bragg Lecture at University College London (2023). In 2015 and again in 2019, Nature magazine named him among the ten most influential scientists of the year.
A hallmark of Eremets’ success was his openness to theoretical insight. He was among the first to integrate predictions from crystal structure modeling into experimental superconductivity research, forging collaborations that accelerated the pace of discovery. The dynamic feedback between theory and experiment became a cornerstone of a new paradigm to search for high-Tc superconductors, establishing a novel standard of collaboration between theory and experiment.
Despite his landmark achievements, the later years of Eremets’ career were marked by challenges that tested his resilience and commitment. Controversial and ultimately retracted claims of room-temperature superconductivity by other groups cast a shadow over the whole field and raised doubts even about his rigorously validated superhydride results. With characteristic tenacity, Eremets dedicated his final years to defending the integrity of his work, repeating measurements, refining techniques, and maintaining the high scientific standards that had defined his life.
Beyond the lab, Eremets was a beloved mentor, colleague, and friend. His students and collaborators remember not only his intellectual brilliance but also his kindness, generosity, and humility. He was a scientist driven by pure curiosity, constantly seeking to understand nature’s hidden secrets. Even outside his professional life, Eremets was energetic and engaged - he remained an active sportsman well into his seventies, enjoying football, cycling, and weightlifting.
Dr. Eremets is survived by his wife, son, and grandson. His passing leaves a profound void in the scientific community, but his legacy endures in the countless lives he touched, the students he trained, the colleagues he inspired, and the discoveries that will shape the future of physics for decades to come.
As we remember Mikhail Eremets, we honor a man who combined vision, dedication, and exceptional skill to expand the frontiers of scientific knowledge. His life’s work brought humanity closer to realizing two of the greatest dreams in condensed matter physics – superconductivity at room temperature and metallic hydrogen – and in doing so, he reshaped what we believe is possible.
To quote one of his long-time collaborators: “Mikhail will be deeply missed, but his spirit lives on in every high-pressure experiment, every search for new superconducting phases, and every scientist he inspired to push the limits of what can be achieved.”
Our heartfelt condolences go to his family, friends, colleagues, and the global scientific community mourning this extraordinary man.
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