Yan Meng

The layered material (SnS)1.15(TaS2) resembles a stack of paper, where the sheets conduct electricity and the interlayers prevent them from sticking together. At ambient pressure, this material conducts current without resistance, making it a superconductor.

Light can get stuck inside tiny structures, like sound in a perfectly tuned bell: the energy does not escape, even though there are no walls around. Such states are called 'bound states in the continuum'—light is trapped but not confined in a box. Until now, they were produced in ordinary crystals, where left and right directions are indistinguishable.