Ultracold indium atoms could make unexpected new types of matter

Atoms of the soft, silvery metal indium have been chilled to temperatures so cold that the particles can demonstrate strange quantum behaviour, such as forming new types of matter. Because indium isn’t related to any other element that has achieved such an ultracold state, researchers expect these atoms to display surprising quantum properties.

“As a curious experimentalist, I wanted to try something where you really didn’t know what was going to happen,” says Travis Nicholson at Duke University in North Carolina.