Limits of Hydrogen-Boosted Superconductivity in Borophene

Two-dimensional (2D) boron, borophene, unlike the majority of other 2D materials, features a metallic ground state and is expected to show phonon-mediated superconductivity with a modest critical temperature, Tc. The recent prediction of enhanced Tc through hydrogenation in several 2D materials and the experimentally feasible hydrogenation of borophene naturally provoke the question of whether hydrogen can boost the Tc of borophene. Here, we employ first-principles calculations to examine the electronic structure, phonon dispersion, and electron–phonon coupling of borophene for varying H coverage. While the Tc's for the selected most stable hydrogenated borophene ("borophane") polymorphs are found to be not higher but lower than that of the parent borophene, our results suggest that the intrinsic superconductivity of borophene appears robust again modest "disorder" due to hydrogenation.