1MEL-H: A Mechanically and Electrochemically Locked Hydrogen Superconductor

I propose a materials architecture rather than a single speculative chemical formula for pursuing high-temperature superconductivity at ambient pressure. The proposed architecture, named MEL-H (Mechanically and Electrochemically Locked Hydrogen), combines a metastable ternary hydride, a covalent nanoconfining matrix, residual interfacial strain, and reversible protonic charge control. The central hypothesis is that a high-𝑇𝑐 hydrogen-rich phase does not need to reproduce the full hydrostatic pressure of a diamond-anvil cell if its local hydrogen coordination, electron count, lattice stiffness, and decomposition pathways are controlled independently. I propose to synthesize a hydrogen-rich phase of the Mg2TH6 family, with T initially selected as Rh, Ir, Cu, or Fe, inside a coherent B–C, Si–C, or diamond-like host. Pressure-quench processing would create the metastable phase; a proton-conducting gate would tune hydrogen loading and carrier density; and the host would supply a persistent anisotropic stress field and a diffusion barrier. This design integrates experimentally demonstrated ideas—high-𝑇𝑐 hydrides under pressure, pressure-quench stabilization, ambient-pressure metastable hydrides, protonic gating, and strain stabilization—into a single testable platform. I do not claim that MEL-H has already been synthesized or that it is guaranteed to reach 300 K. I instead derive falsifiable structure, spectroscopy, transport, magnetic, isotope, and kinetic-stability criteria. The most credible first milestone is a bulk transition above 150 K at 1 bar, followed by optimization toward 220–300 K. The proposal is disruptive because it changes the target from a passive “room-temperature crystal” to an active, self-confined, electrically programmable quantum material.