Under suitably high pressures polyhydrides may become superconducting. Characteristics of substances that are predicted to have high superconducting temperatures are a high phonon frequency, which will happen for light elements, and strong bonds. Hydrogen is the lightest and so will have the highest frequency of vibration. Even changing the isotope to deuterium will lower the frequency and lower the transition temperature. Compounds with more hydrogen will resemble the predicted metallic hydrogen. However, superconductors also tend to be substances with high symmetry and also need the electrons not to be locked into molecular subunits, and require large numbers of electrons in states near the Fermi level. There should also be electron-phonon coupling which happens when the electric properties are tied to the mechanical position of the hydrogen atoms. The highest superconduction critical temperatures are predicted to be in groups 3 and 3 of the periodic table. Late transitions elements, heavy lanthanides or actinides have extra d- or f-electrons that interfere with superconductivity.
