indium

For example, car batteries are often reliant on lithium, while indium is a rare metal used for touch screens.

For their proof-of-concept work, the researchers used Field's metal, which is an alloy of indium, bismuth and tin.

One of their samples turned out to be a brilliant blue, named YInMn blue after the component elements yttrium, indium and manganese.

The resulting, extremely thin quantum semiconductors are composed of a single atom layer -- in indenene's case, indium atoms -- and act as topological insulators, conducting electricity virtually without resistance along their edges.

The Dortmund physicists led by Dr. Alex Greilich have now designed a special crystal made of indium gallium arsenide, in which the nuclear spins act as a reservoir for the time crystal.