An ideal material: Solving a mystery leads to the discovery of a true topological insulator

Experimentalists have recently confirmed that SmB6 is the first true 3D topological insulator —- as originally predicted by theorists in 2010. Topological insulators have been discussed widely as a new area of material science, with the potential to study quantum Hall physics and exotic states such as Majorana fermions. While this finding provides a conclusion to one mystery, it is also the beginning of a new chapter that will certainly lead to a clearer understanding of this strange physics and even new quantum devices.

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