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INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS PUBLISHING JOURNAL OF PHYSICS: CONDENSED MATTER J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 17 (2005) S921–S928 doi:10.1088/0953-8984/17/11/024 Enhanced superconducting properties of bicrystalline YBa Cu O and alkali metals under pressure 2 3 x 1 1 1 1 2 T Tomita , S Deemyad , J J Hamlin , J S Schilling , V G Tissen , B W Veal3, L Chen3 and H Claus3 1 Department of Physics, Washington University, CB 1105, St Louis, MO 63130, USA 2 Institute of Solid State Physics, Chernogolovka 142432, Moscow District, Russia 3 Materials Science Division, Argonne National Labs, 9700 S Cass Avenue, Argonne, IL 60439, USA Received 5 January 2005 Published 4 March 2005 Online at stacks.iop.org/JPhysCM/17/S921 Abstract Nearly hydrostatic pressures are found to enhance the critical current density J through single grain boundaries in YBa Cu O rings and to induce c 2 3 x superconductivity in Li. Whereas Li becomes superconducting above 20 GPa at temperatures as high as 15 K, no superconductivity was observed above 4 K in Na to 65 GPa nor in K above 4 K to 43.5 GPa or above 1.5 K to 35 GPa. 1. Introduction The first high pressure experiments on a superconductor were carried out in 1925 by Sizoo and Onnes [1], 14 years after the discovery of the first superconductor [2]. Since then high pressure investigations have had an important impact on the field. Following the discovery of a new superc