I. Bozovic

Electrons in a metal are like a crowd in a subway: each on their own, but at the slightest push, everyone moves at once. Physicists call this collective oscillation of the electron gas a plasmon. In superconductors, these oscillations are especially important because they reveal how electrons interact with each other.

A film sliver thinner than a human hair was placed between diamond anvils and squeezed. The pressure climbed — a hundred thousand atmospheres, half a million, a million… Yet the material kept conducting electricity without resistance.