Natalia Olszowska

Niobium diselenide is a layered material that conducts current without resistance at low temperatures. If you weave nickel atoms between its layers, like extra threads in a fabric, superconductivity vanishes.

A layered cake of molybdenum disulfide MoS2 sits on the lab bench. It is prepared in the usual way: adhesive tape peels off the top layers to obtain a thin sample. But beneath the tape remains an invisible cavity where the atomic floors are no longer pressed together. It is there that electrons begin to behave differently than in the crystal bulk.