Hengxin Tan

In the woven basket pattern, where the strands interlace into triangles, some electrons get stuck in place, like coins wedged in the gaps of the weave. Other electrons roam freely across the whole basket, like light filling a room. Physicists have long sought the moment when these two types of electrons start to influence each other, and now it has been found in the material CsCr6Sb6.

The surface of a crystal is like a stage where quantum effects are meant to perform. In MnBi2Te4, a magnetic topological insulator, special electronic states are expected to run along the surface, and the magnetic order opens an energy gap in them: a forbidden zone that makes transport quantized.